238 AMERICAN FOSSIL ELEPHANTS. 



are cited in illustration. 1 Bnt the assertion has arisen from 

 a hasty and superficial examination of the specimens. The 

 ivory-cores of the ridges in the Elephants are wedge-shaped 

 bodies, broader at the base and thinning upwards. The 

 plane of abrasion intersects these wedges obliquely, so that, 

 when far advanced in wear, the discs of the same ridges are 

 much wider below than the width of their base, and than 

 they were in the earlier stage at the apex. The Eschscholtz 

 Bay molar referred to is a last true molar, so far advanced 

 in wear that little more than the posterior half of it remains 

 in the lower jaw. In front, part is worn down to the base, 

 thus yielding the dilated appearance which has been mis- 

 taken for the character of E. meridionalis. The mandible 

 which contains it is preserved in the British Museum, exhi- 

 biting all the typical characters of E. primigenius. When 

 the materials are in a tolerably fair state of preservation I 

 have hardly ever seen a case where a molar of E. meri- 

 dionalis, or of E. antiquus, could be confounded with that of 

 the Mammoth. Mutilated and fragmentary specimens are 

 frequently puzzling ; simply because they are torsos of the 

 worst description, in which parts are not merely wanting, 

 but what remains is disfigured and disguised by abrasion. 



In the view here taken there are, at the present time, but 

 two well determined species of fossil Elephant known in 

 North America. 



1. E. primigenius, Blumb. Syn. E. Americanus, Leidy. The 

 name E. Rupertianus, 2 of Sir John Richardson, might have 

 been cited as another synonym, but for the fact that that 

 distinguished naturalist and Arctic explorer, with character- 

 istic firmness, withdrew it, as soon as he became aware, by 

 his own later researches, that it was untenable. 



2. E. Columbi, 1857, Syn. E. primigenius, pro parte, of the 

 American palaeontologists ; E. Texianus, Owen, 1858. 



"Whether the Cayenne specimen spoken of by Lartet (antea, 

 p. 231) belongs to this, or to a distinct species, remains to be 

 ascertained. 



The same, with our present knowledge, must be said of 

 the E. imperator of Leidy, from Niobrara. Until a perfect 

 molar is figured and described, no satisfactory opinion can be 

 formed as to what the species is. Dr. Leidy, as already 

 stated, assumed it to be distinct, and gave it the name upon 

 the assumption. 



The same uncertainty applies to the specimens described 

 conventionally by the anonymous author, for the occasion, 



1 British Eoss. Mamm. p. 238 (see antea, p. 107, note). — [Ed.] 



2 Zoology of the Voyage of the ' Herald,' p. 102. 



