﻿ELEPHAS ANTIQUUS— TRUE MOLARS. 



35 



plane of attrition passes through the broadest portion of the plate, so that the disk is rela- 

 tively broader in the antero-posterior direction than would obtain at any other point in a 

 transverse section, and looks precisely as in E.priscus, with marked crimping and thickness 

 of the enamel. There are 6| ridges in 5 inches. Considering, however, the above state- 

 ment, it would be wrong to place the fragment with E. antiquus, seeing that crimping, 

 mesial expansion and angulation of disks are sometimes pronounced in specimens of E. 

 meridionalis ; it is suggestive, however, with reference to further discoveries in the 

 Norwich Crag. 



I think fragmentary teeth, especially well-worn crowns of the thick-plated variety, 

 are very liable to become confounded with molars of E. Africanus, but no cautious 

 observer should come to a conclusion either way on such evidence, unless the characters 

 are clear beyond doubt. 



I can find no record or discover any ultimate molar of E. Africanus with a larger 

 ridge formula than w 13^; indeed, in far the greatest number of specimens it seldom 

 exceeds xll x. 



The evidence of Falconer 1 and Lartet, 2 that fossil molars discovered near Madrid, 

 Syracuse, and Palermo, were determined by them as belonging to Elephas Africanus, is 

 of such importance in connection with this E. prisms variety of E. antiquus as met with 

 in British strata, that some account must be taken here of the instances on which their 

 diagnoses were founded. I am unable to verify from personal examination the teeth 

 discovered in Spain and at Syracuse, 3 but the two almost worn-out morsels 4 of teeth 

 referred to by Falconer and represented by Baron Anca, who found them in the Cave of 

 San Teodoro, as also a crown containing several plates, which the latter assured me was 

 discovered in digging a sewer in one of the chief streets of Palermo, were carefully 

 examined by me during a visit to Sicily in 1864, subsequently to that of Dr. Falconer. 



With reference to these Sicilian teeth represented in figs. 5 and 6 of plate xi of 

 the seventeenth volume of the ' Bulletin of the Geological Society of France,' and 

 described at pp. 689 and 694, it appears to me that, as one contains only an entire disk 

 and the other the outer, or else the inner, third of an antero-posterior section of a crown 

 with only portions of three disks, even allowing their wide expansion and general 

 thickness of the enamel, it would be premature, on such slender evidence, to assert their 

 identity with teeth of E. Africanus, especially after the data here adduced of the thick- 

 plated teeth of E. antiquus. Moreover, the planes of detrition in these two fragments 

 pass exactly, as before stated, through the lower and thickest portion of the crown. 



A more suggestive instance is represented by the other specimen, which I 



1 'Pal. Mem.,' vol. ii, p. 283. 



2 'Comptes Rendus,' 22 Fev., 1858, torn. xlvi. 



3 The latter is described by Canon Alessi in vol. vii of the ' Atti dell' Accad. di Scienz. Nat.,' and is 

 quoted by Falconer. 



4 Plate xi, figs. 5 and 6, p. 684, vol. xvii, ' Bullet. Soc. Geol. de France' (2e serie) ; vol. xviii, p. 90, 

 in a letter to M. Lartet. 



