26 THE MASTODON. 



Montgomery county, same State, the hair was found of a 

 dun color, and three inches long. Both skin and hair ac- 

 companied the bones found sixty feet beneath the surface, 

 near the entrance of the Wabash 'River into the Ohio. 



IX. DIFFERENT SPECIES. 



The number of the varieties of the mastodon have been 

 variously given by authors, from four to thirty, owing to 

 the differences which each thought should constitute a dis- 

 tinct species*. Many of these differences are not based 

 upon the comparisons of skeletons, but upon some slight 

 modification of a tooth. The wisdom of attempting to 

 found a new species upon some slight variation of a tooth, 

 or some other member, is to be doubted. The slight modi- 

 fication of a tooth of any well marked family is an uncer- 

 tain guide. A writer in the Dental Cosmos cites statistics 

 showing that the wisdom tooth in man is being gradually 

 lost ; that " of three hundred and twelve persons over 

 twenty-six years of age, fifty-two had none at all ; forty- 

 four had deficiencies in upper and lower ; seventy-six had 

 deficiencies in upper only ; thirty-two had deficiencies in 

 lower only ; twenty-one with deficiencies were over fifty 

 years of age. In three hundred and twelve persons, three 

 hundred and four wisdom teeth were absent." It would 

 be folly in such cases to assign these people to a new 

 species of mankind. The compiler of this work still 

 retains the second of the two temporary molars of the 

 right side of the lower jaw, and, hence, never had the 

 second bicuspid. On consulting one of the best informed 

 dentists, concerning this tooth, he was assured that such 

 was not uncommon. Upon the plan, adopted by some 

 comparative anatomists, those of us having only three 

 bicuspids in the lower jaw, then, must be assigned to a 

 "different and well marked species of mankind." 



In the following list of the different varieties of the 

 mastodon an attempt is made to explain the meaning of the 



