ELEPHANT AND MASTODON. 15 



In 1821 Dr. Goldfuss 1 described a fossil grinder found in a 

 collection at Cologne, which resembles very much that of the 

 African Elephant, in the characteristic peculiarities of the rhomboid 

 form and reduced number of the grinding plates. He states that 

 the specimen, although the precise locality was unknown, has the 

 cement and ivory as much decomposed as in the fossil grinders 

 from Siberia. In a second memoir 2 he figures and describes other 

 teeth presenting the same characters, from the banks of the Ruhr, 

 in Westphalia, and concludes from them that the valley of the 

 Rhine had formerly an Elephant, which was more closely allied to 

 the African, than the Mammoth was to the existing Indian species. 

 He proposed naming it provisionally Elephas priscus. 



Cuvier threw very strong doubts upon the authenticity of these 

 specimens as veritable fossils, in consequence of the ambiguous 

 circumstances under which they were found. He considered them 

 to be nothing more than disguised remains of African elephants of 

 modern origin. 3 But according to Bronn, fossil teeth of the same 

 description have since been found, under circumstances fully to be 

 depended upon, throughout nearly the whole of Central Europe, 

 from the Rhine to the heart of Russia. 4 Some of them have been 

 described by Wagner; 5 and undoubted fossil teeth, presenting 

 similar characters, have been met with in the ' brick earth ' beds of 

 the valley of the Thames, at a considerable depth below the 

 surface. These will be noticed afterwards in connexion with 

 the dental series of one of the Indian fossil species. 



Fischer de Waldheim, in 1829, proposed the separation from 

 the Mammoth of no less than five fossil species of Elephant, 

 founded upon remains occurring in Russia. These he has severally 

 named — JE . proboletes, E. campy lotes, E. Kamenskii, E. Panicus, 

 and E. pygmaus? Dr. Eichwald went still further, and added a 

 sixth species, from Poland, under the name of E. odontotyran- 



1 Goldfuss, Nov. Act. Acad. Leop. Carol. Natur. Curios, vol. x. p. 485. 



2 Idem, loc. cit. vol. xi. p. 485. 



3 Cuvier, Oss. Fossiles, torn. ii. (8vo edit.) p. 184. 



4 Bronn, Lethaea Geog., p. 1244. 



5 Wagner, Karsten's Archiv. xvi. p. 21. 



6 Fischer de Waldheim, Bullet, de la Soc. de Moscou, 1829, torn. i. p. 275 ; Memoires 

 de la Soc. de Moscou, torn. i. p. 285. 



