40 DESCRIPTION OF AN ENTIRE HEAD 



by great depth, and terminates above in a narrow, profound pit, which pene- 

 trates two inches under the anterior nares. Besides the ordinary infra-orbitary 

 foramen, there is a second, much smaller one, a branch from the former, and 

 placed three inches within and above it. This second infra-orbitary foramen 

 has four superficial sulci, two within and two without, radiating from it, and 

 indicating the direction of nerves and blood-vessels. 



The malar bone is much broader than in the Elephant. The conformation of 

 the orbit is like that of the latter animal, but it is a section of a more regular 

 circle, and is six and a half inches in diameter. Two and a half inches poste- 

 rior to the spine of bone, at the internal margin of the orbit, near its middle, 

 there is a small canal, which leads to the infra-orbitar canal, and which, in the 

 Elephant, is merely a groove. The orbit has the same relative position as in 

 the Elephant, in which respect Cuvier* has been led into error by the de- 

 claration of Mr. Peale,t that there was no trace of orbit at the anterior part 

 of the arch, (zygomatic;) for we find this arch continued into the orbit of the 

 Mastodon, just as in the Elephant, the greater breadth of the malar bone in the 

 former making the chief difference. The zygomatic suture is nearly the same 

 as in the Elephant. 



The meatus auditorius externus (see Plate I., fig. 1,) is a compressed oval 

 orifice, the distance of which, from the anterior margin of the orbit, is seventeen 

 and a half inches. 



The temporal fossa is broad, deep, and nearly uniformly concave, with very 

 little of that convexity near its posterior part which exists in the Elephant. 

 The pterygoid processes of the sphenoid bone, said by Cuvier to be larger than 

 in any other quadruped, are eight inches in length, have a well-marked fossa, 

 and present no inconsiderable resemblance to those in the human subject, which 

 is not the case in the Elephant. The tuber of the upper maxillary bone is not 

 so full as in the latter. 



The hard palate is destitute of a notch behind, which exists in the Elephant, 

 being flush; it is, in its whole length, nearly a plane, instead of curving down 

 abruptly at its anterior portion, as in the Elephant. It measures, from its pos- 

 terior margin to its anterior, at a central point between the edges of the alveoli 

 of the tusks, two feet two inches. 



The temporal bone presents the articular surface for the lower jaw exclu- 



* Recherches sur les Ossemens Fossiles, Vol. II., p. 301. Paris, 1840. 

 t Historical Disquisition on the Mammoth, p. 41. London, 1803. 



