﻿ELEPHAS ANTIQUUS.— TRUE MOLARS. 



41 



Two very characteristic instances are seen in lower molars " 589" and " 589 a" in the 

 Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. The localities are unknown, but 

 their light colour is indicative of Grays Thurrock specimens. The former is entire, and 

 holds x 15 x in 11 inches. This tooth, unquestionably the last of the series, would indicate 

 the minimum number of ridges, as far as I have been enabled to discover. No. 589 a 

 has lost its first ridge, but contains 18 a? in 124 inches. In the same collection there is a 

 crown sawn horizontally through the middle into two portions, Nos. 569 and 570. There 

 is here a loss of ridges, leaving 16 in 10'5 inches. It is recorded from " Brentford." 



Another instance of the long, bent, and narrow crown, from Clacton, is in the 

 possession of Dr. Bree, of Colchester, who has kindly allowed me to examine his col- 

 lection of dredged specimens from the Norfolk coast. Dr. Bree has been at some trouble 

 in ascertaining the exact positions where his specimens of teeth and bones of mammals were 

 picked up by the oyster-dredgers and other persons. The specimen referred to holds 

 x 19 a? in 13 5 inches. In this superb specimen is seen all the characters of the tooth of 

 E. antiquus of the type of B Variety. 



The late Mr. T. Wickham Elower showed me a suggestive example of this long, 

 narrow, bow-shaped lower tooth from Grays. It held x 18 a? in 13 5 inches. 



The foregoing may be accepted as instances of the three varieties of molar crown, and 

 the intermediate conditions which unite the extremes. Thus the broad, narrow, and thick- 

 plated crowns present well-marked differences, which, in the absence of specimens lying 

 between these extremes, might fairly be accepted as belonging to three distinct species ; 

 indeed, the differences are nearly quite as pronounced as between the two living species, 

 so that looking to allied forms, the broad crown assimilates to that of the Mammoth, 

 whilst the thick-plated and expanded disk is barely distinguishable from teeth of the 

 African Elephant. Whatever may be the connection between Mephas antiquus and 

 other forms accepted at present as distinct species, it can scarcely, I think, be denied 

 that, as far as their dentitions are concerned, close alliances are traceable. Moreover, 

 looking to the home of the present species in Asia, and the fossil exuviae from the Mid- 

 tertiary formations of India, it does seem that the genesis of living and extinct Elephants 

 is to be formulated in that region, and that one form, at all events, Mephas Namadicus, 

 is seemingly the representative there of the so-called Mephas antiquus, as will be further 

 shown in the sequel. 



Foreign specimens. — There is an interesting fragment of a large molar, figured and 

 described by Belgrand, 1 in conjunction with a gigantic humerus, from Montreuil, near 

 Paris ; the latter bone will be noticed in the sequel. The crown of the tooth is clearly 

 referable to E. antiquus, and from its dimensions is suggestive of the broad crown, with 

 the closely packed ridges of the members of A Variety, but whether a penultimate or 

 ultimate does not appear in its fragmentary state. 



A detailed account of a mandible containing molars of the thick-plated variety is given 



1 ' Basin de Paris,' pi. xvi, p. 1/5. 



6 



