THE MAMMOTH IN SPACE AND TIME. 145 
The animal ranged over the whole of North America, from the 
frozen cliffs of Eschscholtz Bay as far south as the Isthmus of 
Darien—the Elephas americanus of Leidy* and the EL. Columbit of 
Falconer (Z. texianus, Owen) being mere varieties of the same sort 
as those observable in the Kuropean mammoths, founded merely on 
the relative width and coarseness of the plates composing the grinders ; 
while the #. Jacksoni of Billings merely supplies a slight variation in 
the form of the lower jaw. 
Thus the mammoth ranged in ancient times over nearly the whole 
of the land of the northern hemisphere; and it is most important to 
note a singular fact in the distribution of the varieties with grinders 
composed respectively of narrow and wide plates. Just as in Kuro- 
Asia the variety with its grinders composed of narrow plates has its 
headquarters in the north, and is replaced in Asia Minor by the 
variety with wide plates in its grinders (the Z. armeniacus of Dr. 
Falconer), so in America is the narrow-plated form replaced in the 
southern parts of the continent by the H. Columbi. These differences 
may be the result of the use of different food in the northern and 
southern regions. 
8. Relation to Indian Elephant. 
The next point to be considered is the relation of the mammoth 
to the Indian elephant on the other side of the barrier of deserts and 
mountains of Central Asia. On analyzing all the characters of the 
dentition, we find that the ridge-formula and the succession of the 
teeth are the same, and that the last grinders are so alike that a 
lower molar of Z. indicus has been figured by one of our most dis- 
tinguished anatomists as that of a mammothy. In Dr. Falconer’s 
classification, Hlephas Columbi, E. indicus, and E. armeniacus are 
grouped together, their teeth being built on the same plan§, 
*Colliculi approximati, macheridibus valde undulatis ;” while next 
to them comes ZL. primigenius, ‘‘ Colliculi confertissimi, adamante 
yalde attenuato, machzridibus vix undulatis.” The differences ex- 
pressed in these definitions seem to me to be merely of degree, and 
not of kind. Nor are the differences in the skeletons greater than 
those of the dentition. The possession of hair and wool depends, to 
a large extent, on climate, so that the covering of the Siberian 
mammoth cannot be taken to be a specific character. 
On the present evidence the two seem to me to be so closely related 
that the mammoth may be taken as the ancestor of the Indian ele- 
phant; and it is highly probable that the latter has put on those 
trifling characters by which it is distinguished in the untold ages of 
its sojourn in the tropical forests of India—characters, be it remem- 
bered, of the same order as those observed in the dentition of Hlephas 
Columbi of the warmer regions of North America, and the /. arme- 
* «U.S. Geol. Survey of the Territories,’ F. V. Hayden, vol. i.; Leidy, 
‘Extinct Vertebrate Fauna of W. Territories,’ p. 238. 
+ For the details relating to these forms, see Falconer, Pal. Mem. ii. p. 212, 
{ Owen, Brit. Foss. Mammals, fig. 90. 
§ Pal. Mem. i. p. 14. 
Q.J.G.8. No. 137. L 
