﻿34 



BRITISH FOSSIL ELEPHANTS. 



holding two plates each. Both were also remarkable for the thickness of the enamel and 

 dentine, so characteristic of this type of molar. The specimens were found in Ballarat 

 Pit, near Oxford. 



There have been four late additions to the splendid collection of proboscidian remains 

 in the British Museum, from Cromer Porest Bed and the Pleistocene Deposits near 

 Peterborough. The latter represent a right and left upper molar, apparently from the 

 same individual ; neither is quite entire. The right, No. 47,121, B. M., I have selected 

 as an excellent illustration of this variety ; it is shown, half natural size, in the crown and 

 plan views, Plate II, figs. 3 and 3 a. There is a loss of ridges posteriorly in the above, 

 leaving fifteen ridges in 10 inches. The left tooth, No. 47,120, has fifteen ridges in 9*6 

 inches, the greatest breadth of crown being 3 inches respectively. The maximum height of 

 the tenth ridge is 7'6 inches. The crowns are worn obliquely, and on that account they 

 have the appearance of the crown of E. Asiaticus. The excess in the intervening cement, 

 the thickness of the enamel, excessive crimping, with angulations and expansions here 

 and there, are very pronounced and diagnostic of the variety of molar in question. It is 

 clear, moreover, that if the above teeth were ground down nearly to the enamel reflections 

 there would be a much greater expansion of the disk, approaching the rhomb-shaped 

 dilatation of the so-called E. priscus. In fig. 3 a there is an intercalation of finger-like 

 ridglets on the sides of the tooth, such as are often noticed in ultimate molars of other 

 species j 1 moreover, with the exception of the central expansions and angulations, the 

 fluted enamel gives the crown quite the aspect of that of the Asiatic Elephant. 



The Cromer specimens, No. 47,119, are right and left lower; the latter is shown 

 crown and profile, half natural size, in PI. Ill, figs. 1 and 1 a. They have lost one or 

 two of the ultimate ridges, retaining x 17 in 12' 5 inches. 



The first eleven ridges are invaded, showing large mesial expansions, crimpings, 

 and the angulations, which, however, do not touch each other or overlap as often obtains 

 in E. Africanus. 



The teeth are much arcuated and narrow, with a maximum breadth of crown of 2*7 

 inches. The eleventh ridge, the digitations of which are just invaded, is 7'5 inches in 

 height. The large, round, and curved anterior fang is well preserved on the left molar, 

 fig. 1 a, and supports three ridges, succeeded by a coalescence of the remaining ridges. 

 Here, again, the plates are colossal, each averaging one inch in breadth, with well-defined 

 transverse rugse on the enamel. 



There is a fragment of the crown of what had been evidently a left upper molar in Mr. 

 Gunn's collection, and from the Norwich Crag at Horstead, where heretofore only remains 

 of E. meridionalis and Mastodon are said to have turned up. The morsel is nearly worn 

 down to the enamel reflections and was evidently a tooth on the point of being shed. The 



1 See 1 British Fossil Mammals,' fig. 90, where an enormous lower molar of E. Asiaticus (not 

 E. primiffenius) has numerous accessory ridges on its sides and posteriorly. I found the same in ultimate 

 teeth of E. Mnaidriensis. Dr. Falconer, however, supposes the condition to be a morhid state, and 

 confined to domesticated elephants, 'Pal. Mem.,' vol. ii, p. 281. 



