﻿ELEPHAS ANTIQUUS— TRUE MOLARS. 



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characters of a dredged tooth, although clearly belonging to E. antiquus, the probability 

 is that, like all the early specimens of proboscidian teeth, it was supposed to have come 

 from Siberia. 



B Variety. — The long, narrow crown generally much arcuated in lower molars is the 

 most common description met with in British strata. 1 An excellent example is furnished 

 by No. 28,118, B. M., from Grays, Essex, and is represented in plan, half natural size, 

 Plate II, fig. 2. It holds % 16 a in 113 inches. Each plate is about an inch in thickness, 

 and the height of the longest colline is 6-3 inches. The disks are well developed, displaying 

 the central expansions, angulations, and crimping of the enamel. Like ultimate molars, 

 the crown tapers towards the heel, with the ridges not nearly so approximated, nor is 

 the crown by any means so broad as in members of A series. 



A lower-jaw specimen, No. 27,907, B. M., is shown half natural size in PI. IV, figs. 1 

 and 1 a. It is from the freshwater deposits at Clacton, and has a very hook-shaped 

 anterior fang supporting the three first ridges, followed by six pairs of roots, and the usual 

 coalescence posteriorly, invariably the case in teeth not far advanced in wear. There are 

 twenty ridges, or a? 18 x, in 13 inches. The first sixteen are invaded. 



Here we have an excellent example of the usual description of lower molars as met 

 with in England. The outline of the crown is spindle-shaped. It is matched by another 

 splendid specimen, No. 3946, B. M., of a lower molar from Saffron Walden, referred 

 to by Ealconer, 2 and figured in the 'F. A. S./ pi. xiv a, figs. 11 and 11 a. It holds 

 seventeen ridges, with a loss of one or two in front, in a space of 12'3 inches. In this 

 tooth the posterior talon rises like the other ridges from the common base. A fragment 

 of the long, narrow crown is seen in No. 42,349, B, M., from the Thames Valley 

 deposits. 



C Variety.— The thick-plated variety is typically represented by a tooth from the 

 Valley of the Thames, and referred to by the late Professor Phillips. 3 



It is from the low-level gravels at Culham, near Oxford, and is preserved in 

 the University Museum. This superb specimen holds seventeen ridges, besides a small 

 vermiform talon on the inside of the last plate. The ridge formula is x 16 x in 12*8 

 inches. The eight anterior ridges are invaded, showing large expanded disks with well- 

 defined angulations, central expansions, and pronounced crimping of the machgerides. 

 The height of the ridges is enormous, that of the ninth being 95 inches, whilst the 

 maximum breadth of the crown is 4 inches. The average of each plate is an inch. I 

 examined, moreover, in the Oxford University Museum, two fragments of a last molar 



1 Professor Boyd Dawkins proposes ('Jour. Geol. Soc. London,' vol. xxviii, p. 413) to name 

 E. antiquus the " narrow-toothed elephant," which would restrict the distinction entirely to the members 

 of this series, to the disregarding of the broad-crowned and the thick-plated varieties. 



2 'Pal. Mem.,' vol. i, p. 443 ; vol. ii, pi. ix, figs. 3 and 4, and p. 184. 



3 ' Geology of Oxford,' p. 465. I regret to have been unable to obtain a drawing of this remarkable 

 molar, which ought to be figured. 



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