122 BRITISH POSSIL ELEPHANTS. 



4^ inches, and indicates that the latter had been increased when the ridges were being 

 worn out. The interesting fragment from Parkinson's Collection in the Museum of the 

 Royal College of Surgeons, and figured by him and Professor Owen, is equalled by 

 nearly a precisely similar fragment, No. 3448 of the Kent's Cavern Collection, 

 lately sent to me for examination by Mr. Pengelly. These teeth attest the extreme age 

 attained by the animal.^ 



The two North-American molars, figured and described by Cuvier,^ one from near 

 the mouth of the " Mississippi," the other from " Bigbone Lick," Kentucky, show, as 

 in the lower molar from Siberia, described at p. 117, very evident traces of having been 

 much rolled. Neither specimen was seemingly entire. One of these contains twenty-two 

 ridges, and presents precisely the same t/nn-Tplated characters of the foregoing and 

 the molars from Behring Strait and the Arctic Circle generally. 



There are two fragments of true molars, possibly ultimate teeth, in the Woodwardian 

 Museum, from " Bigbone Lick, Kentucky," bearing the peculiarly Arctic aspect of the 

 above, in the enamel being ver^ tinn. Like the Ohio molars the specimens are blackened, 

 as obtains also in Mastodon remains from the latter State, as if all had come out of peat. 

 A fragment from the same locality is in the British Museum, and as far as appearances 

 go is indistinguishable from the foregoing. 



Mandibles with teeth in silic. — There are two mandibles in the British Museum of 

 very old Elephants, in the Owles Collection, from the Dogger Bank. One is No. 46,197, 

 and shows (as in Plate VHI, fig. 3, from Ilford) the usual characters of ultimate teeth in 

 containing more cement externally than in the preceding teeth, for the reason that this 

 material is needed to fill up the space between the tooth and the jaws. In the former the 

 round heel is nearly level with the border of the coronoid, and, although the jaw is broken 

 across immediately behind, a considerable fragment of the cancellated plug remains where, 

 in the case of a second or any other member of the dental series, the crown of a successor 

 would have appeared. The crowns of the molars are detrited to the common base in front, 

 and only twelve plates and posterior talon remain. The rostrum in this specimen is 

 conspicuously long (Woodcut, fig. 23, p. 139), being over 3 inches in length, and the 

 antero-posterior diameter, including the spout, is 11 inches. The mental foramina 

 (Woodcut, fig. 9, p. 135) are further apart from the free margin of the diasteme than 

 usually obtains in the species. The jaws are thick, being about 6*2 inches at the base of 

 the coronoid, and the height of the symphysis is 4'2 inches. The teeth converge a good 

 deal, being 4 inches apart in front, 5 at the middle, and 8 behind. 



The other mandible, No. 46,215, B. M., shows molars with ver^ ihicJc enamel and 

 much cement as compared with the usual crown from the Dogger Bank. Here the 

 mental foramina are also unusually irregular, there being four on the right and three on 

 the left, at irregular distances relatively to the border of the diasteme. The tooth is 



^ 'Organic Remains,' pi. xx, fig. 7; 'Brit. Fossil Mammals,' fig. 95. 

 ^ 'Osseraens Fossiles,' vol. ii, p. 181, and pi. xv, figs. [) and 1 1. 



