278 PKOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



in the first instance, chiefly to the same parts in the Yal d'Arno 

 remains. XJnkickily the sijecimen that i)resented the most pro- 

 nounced beak had lost its molar teeth ; Nesti assumed it to be of an 

 Elephant. But this selected " piece justificative " for his EJeplias 

 meridionalis was proved by Cuvier to be the lower jaw of Mastodon 

 Arvernensis, and E. minutus to be merely a young Elephant. 



After a long interval, during which Cuvier had visited the Tuscan 

 collections, JSTesti brought out another memoii' upon the subject, in 

 which, upon greatly extended observations on specimens of all 

 ages, from the foetus upwards, including crania, lower jaws, mo- 

 lars, tusks, and bones of the extremities, he upheld the soundness 

 of his first inference in regard to the distinctness of E. meridio- 

 nalis, while he admits tacitly the force of Guvier's criticism upon 

 his second species, E. nmmtus. The memoir is accompanied by 

 figures of the cranium, lower jaws, and molars, but so imperfectly 

 executed, that they proved of little service either in establishing his 

 case or in guiding other palaeontologists to a satisfactory conclusion. 

 Another circumstance, which materially damaged the authority of 

 Nesti upon a question of such difiiculty and importance, is that he 

 states that, after examining a vast number of molars of all ages, he 

 had found them to vary so much — some having thick plates, others 

 thin, and the same tooth presenting such different patterns, accord- 

 ing to its age and degree of wear — that he had abandoned the cha- 

 racters yielded by the molar teeth as worthless (!) for any reliable 

 marks of specific distinction. In the teeth themselves he had dis- 

 covered no sensible diflferenees from the characters figured and 

 described of those of E. primigenms. This singular conclusion is, 

 in some measure, explained by the fact that hardly a specimen of a 

 molar of the true Mammoth exists in the Florentine Museum for 

 comparison. It is, perhaps, still more remarkable that the expe- 

 rienced eye of Cuvier should have glanced over the multifarious 

 evidence supplied by the Tuscan collections, without being con- 

 vinced that E. meridionalis was a well-founded species, considering 

 the rapidity with which he seized, and the logical precision with 

 which he characterized, the distinctive marks of the Mammoth from 

 the existing Indian Elephant. 



Failing the teeth, Nesti drew his specific distinctions from the 

 form of the cranium and lower jaw. Ample evidence is aiforded 

 by them for establishing E. meridionalis as an independent form. 



It would be both tedious, and beside the scope of this essay, to 

 detail the various opinions that have been expressed by different 

 palaeontologists respecting E. mendioiudis. They will be found 

 embodied in systematic works upon the science ; and, on the pre- 

 sent occasion, I shall confine myself to such as have had most in- 

 fluence, either in throwing light upon the characters of the species 

 or in discrediting it. 



Cuvier rested the specific distinction of the molars of the Mam- 

 moth upon three characters, namely, the great width of the crown, 

 the attenuation of the plates, and the absence or small amount of 

 crimping in the edges of the enamel. He admits that he had ob- 



