35(> Marsh — Restoration of Mastodon Americanus. 



Art. XLIII. — Restoration of Mastodon Americanus, Cuvier; 

 by 0. C. Marsh. (With Plate VIII.) 



The great abundance and good preservation of the remains 

 of the American Mastodon have led to various restorations of 

 the skeleton. The best known of these is that made by Prof. 

 Richard Owen, in 1S46, based upon a skeleton from Missouri 

 now in the British Museum.* Another restoration was made 

 a few years later by Dr. J. C. "Warren, based mainly on a very 

 perfect skeleton from Orange county, .New York.f This 

 skeleton is now preserved in the Warren Museum in Boston. 

 A third restoration was made by Prof. James Hall, from a 

 skeleton found at Cohoes, Jfew York, and now in the State 

 Museum of Natural History, in Albany.;}; These restorations 

 are all of importance, and taken together have made clear to 

 anatomists nearly all the essential features of the skeleton of 

 this well-known species. 



Additional discoveries have since brought to light more 

 perfect specimens, one of which, now in the Yale Museum, is 

 perhaps in the best preservation of any skeleton of the Ameri- 

 can Mastodon yet discovered, and this has been used by the 

 writer in the restoration, one thirty-second natural size, given on 

 Plate YI, which is reduced from a large drawing made for 

 the United States Geological Survey. 



The position chosen in this restoration is one which seems 

 especially fitted to bring out the massive proportions of the 

 animal, and, at the same time, to show nearly all the charac- 

 teristic features of the entire skeleton. The animal as thus 

 represented was, when alive, about twelve feet in height, and 

 perhaps twenty-four feet in length including the tusks. 



This animal was fully adult, as the last molars above and 

 below are in place and somewhat worn. The epiphyses of 

 the vertebrae, moreover, are nearly all coossified with the 

 centra, and in some of them, the sutures are obliterated. The 

 epiphyses are also firmly united to the limb bones. 



The tusks were very large, and considerably divergent. 

 There were no inferior tusks, and no traces of their alveoli ' 

 remain. The penultimate and last molars are present above 

 and below in fine preservation, the former considerably worn. 



Other features of this skeleton, and especially the various 

 new anatomical points it discloses, will be discussed by the 

 writer in another communication. 

 New Haven, Conn., September 23, 1892. 



* British fossil Mammals and Birds, figure 102, p. 2 OS, London, 1S46. 



f Description of a skeleton of the Mastodon giganteits of North America, plate 

 atxvii, Boston, 1S52. 



% Report of the New York State Cabinet of Natural History for the yea'- 1867 

 plate vi, Albany, 1871. 



