REMARKS ON THE DENTAL SYSTEM OF THE MASTODON. 59 



depending- upon the osseous filaments entering into their composition, and upon 

 the direction and branching of certain tubes between these filaments.* While 

 we are waiting for the exhumation of more heads of the above animals, possi- 

 bly a microscopic examination of teeth and of tusks may serve to clear away 

 some of the mysteries which obscure these problems in the extinct race, of 

 which we have been, treating. 



These details and difficulties, apparently trivial, will perhaps be excused 

 when we recollect that a single print of the cranium of a fossil Elephant, found 

 in Siberia, and published seventy years before by Messerschmidt,f gave to the 

 great Cuvier his first idea on the Theory of the Earth and of its changes, and 

 caused him to execute the work which stood highest in his own estimation, 

 to say nothing of the approbation which it has received from the scientific 

 world, to wit, the Oss. Fossiles. 



* See Muller's Archives for 1837, for an account of the Danish work of Professor Retzius, of 

 Stockholm. The reader may for these, and other investigations on the same subject, consult also 

 with advantage a Compilation called Researches, &c., on the Teeth, by A. Nasmyth. Lond.: 1839, 



t Transactions Philosoph. Vol. XT. p. 446, 



