266 



tusks in the lower jaw : and the specimen at Baltimore, which is con- 

 sidered to be indisputably a male, is also destitute of inferior tusks. 



Now, Dr. H. remarked, if even we were sufficiently well acquaint- 

 ed with the osteology of the Mastodon to distinguish the male from 

 the female pelvis, which he thought we were not, still Mr. Koch's in- 

 . ferences would be unfounded, because, 1st. the pelvis and the lower 

 jaw in the Baltimore skeleton belonged to different individuals : and 

 2d. the lower jaw in the Philadelphia one was of wood, modelled after 

 the former, whilst the pelvis belonged to a third individual. 



Dr. H. then gave the following brief history of these skeletons. 



That in the Philadelphia Museum, which is the most perfect, was 

 disinterred by Mr. C. W. Peale, in 1801, on the farm of John Mas- 

 ten, near Newburgh, New York. The Baltimore skeleton was ob- 

 tained by Mr. Peale, the same year, from a morass belonging to Cap- 

 tain Barber, eleven miles distant from Masten's. Both these skeletons 

 were incomplete, and many of their deficiencies were supplied by ar- 

 tificial imitations of corresponding parts in each other, or of coun- 

 terparts in themselves. The lower jaw, however, belonging to the 

 skeleton found at Masten's, had been broken to pieces in the attempt 

 to get it out, and the teeth and a few fragments only were preserved ; 

 and no lower jaw was discovered among the bones found at Captain 

 Barber's. To complete this part in the Baltimore skeleton, a lower 

 jaw was taken which had been dug up on the farm of Peter Millspaw ; 

 whilst for the same object in the Philadelphia skeleton, a model of 

 this same jaw was made, and the teeth of the individual which had 

 been preserved were inserted therein. The tusks found at Masten's 

 were too friable to support their own weight ; models of them were 

 therefore made in wood, which were used in the construction of the 

 skeleton. 



The upper part of the head was not discovered, and this part was 

 modelled after the cranium of the Elephant, an incorrect model, as 

 has since been ascertained. 



Prof. Bache communicated an extract of a letter from M. 

 Quetelet of Brussels, stating that hourly meteorological obser- 

 vations were made at some fifty stations in Europe at the pe- 

 riods of the equinoxes and solstices, the observers corres- 

 ponding with the Academy of Sciences of Brussels. M. Que- 

 telet expresses the wish that the American Philosophical So- 

 ciety should become the centre of a similar union for the new 

 world, and urges that the attention of men of science should 



