324 PEOCEEDTNGS OF THE GEOLOGICAI SOCIETY. 



In the same year he read a memoir at the first public meeting of the 

 " Institute," but which was not published until 1806, in which the 

 diagnostic marks are very pointedly expressed under the designation 

 oi Elephas mammonteits: "Maxilla obtusiore,lamellis molarium tenui- 

 bus rectis," as distinguished from Elephas Indicus : " Fronte plano- 

 concava, lamellis molarium arcuatis, undatis." Cuvier connected 

 these dental and mandibular distinctions with others yielded by 

 Messer Schmidt's figure of the skull of the Mammoth, and com- 

 bined the whole in the extended specific definition of the extinct 

 form, which appeared in his memoir of 1806 — " L'Elephant a crane 

 aUonge, a front concave, a tres-longues alveoles des defenses, a 

 m^Tchoire inferieure obtuse, a machelieres plus larges, paralleles, 

 marquees des rubans plus serres." He abandoned the name E. 

 mammonteus of his memoir of 1796, and adopted the designation of 

 Elephas primigenms, proposed by Blumenbach* in 1803, which is 

 that now generally accepted among palaeontologists. To this normal 

 form, as already stated, Cuvier referred aU the fossil remains of 

 Elephants found over the whole of Europe, in Northern Asia, and 

 in North America, however much at variance with the terms of his 

 definition; and, to the last, he clung to the specific unity of the 

 " Elephant fossile " with the jealous partiality of a discoverer for 

 the earliest result from which his most cherished labours sprung. 



The distinctive characters in the molars of the Mammoth, as 

 compared with those of the existing Indian Elephant, upon which 

 Cuvier relied, may be expressed in the following terms : — 



1. Great narrowness or compression and approximation of the 

 crown-ridges, involving both a larger number in the same length of 

 crown and in triturating use at the same time. 



2. Tenuity of, and absence of crimping in, the enamel plates. 



3. Greater width of the molar crowns, both absolutely and rela- 

 tively to their length. 



These peculiarities, when combined, are very constant in the 

 Mammoth. Exceptional cases have been admitted by Cuvier, and 

 adduced by others ; but, when closely examined, they have proved 

 either to belong to other extinct species or to be disguised molars 

 of the existing Indian Elephant. 



Taking the molars of the Mammoth in succession from first to 

 last, they yield the descriptions which follow. 



a. Upper MiUc-moIars. — Of the milk-molars of the upper jaw, 

 the antepenultimate or most anterior, from its rudimentary form, 

 appears to have been shed at a veiy early period, and it is con- 

 sequently but rarely observed in situ in the fossil state. It is 

 inferred to have been composed of four ridges, with talons, like 

 the corresponding rudimentary tooth of the Indian Elephant. 



The penultimate milk-molar (or second in appearance) is much 

 more common, especially in cave-coUections. I observed in the 

 Taunton Museum no fewer than eight worn penultimates, upper 

 and lower, in the collection formed by the Rev. D. WiUiams, from 

 the Mendip caverns. There ai'e several also in Mr. Beard's collec- 

 * Voigt's Mag. 1803, Band v. p. 16. 



