46 DESCRIPTION OF AN" ENTIRE HEAD 



The cervical vertebrse of this Mastodon are from an eighth to a fifth thicker 

 than they are in the Elephant The latter measures eleven feet from the 

 anterior nares to the end of the ischia: the Mastodon was probably twelve 

 and a half feet in the same line. 



Measurements and estimates thereon give, in the Mastodon, supposing the 

 feet to be of the same vertical height as in the Elephant, the following results: 



Mastodon. Elephant. 



From tips of spinous processes of 1st and 2nd 



dorsal vertebrae to ground, 8 feet 9 inches. 9 feet. 



From tip of spinous process of last lumbar ver- 

 tebra to ground, 7 feet 10 inches. 8 feet. 



The Mastodon above described is inferior in the measurements of its several 

 pieces to the one in the Philadelphia Museum; the latter, however, in being 

 articulated at a height of eleven and a half feet,' has probably transcended its 

 natural limits at least eighteen inches: its length also exceeds, probably, the 

 proper bounds. The thorax appears to be unnaturally expanded by the undue 

 length of the costal cartilages: the pelvis, also, by the keeping apart the sym- 

 physis of the pubes and ischia, instead of joining it, has an excess in its di- 

 ameter of from eight to ten inches. The head is likewise thrown too much 

 forward. The probability is, that the Mastodon carried his head with the 

 front part almost vertical, as the Elephant, which would ease much the action 

 of the muscles intended for its support. 



In the collection of Mastodon bones previously in the cabinet of the Society, 

 there is a vertebra dentata eight and three-fourths of an inch broad, by eleven and 

 a half in its antero-posterior diameter, and an os calcis ten and a half inches long: 

 the animal, of which these are the remains, was probably from an eighth to a 

 tenth larger than the subject of this paper. Whether the remains of the largest 

 animals of this race have as yet been brought to light, must continue for some 



eight to ten feet, and the Elephas Indicus one of from eight to sixteen feet. The Elephas Pri- 

 mogenus, or Fossil Elephant, also called Mammoth or Behemoth, now extinct, and whose re- 

 mains are so abundant in Siberia and the borders and islands of the Frozen Sea, as to justify 

 the expression that the ground is in places strewed with them, appears to have been about, or 

 a little beyond, the stature of the Indian Elephant. Cuvier's Oss. Foss., Ed. 1812, p. 135, vol. II. 



