149 



aside. It is an extension of this peculiarity of form, which in part 

 characterizes the present tooth, since very few of the plates of which it 

 is formed pass directly across : leaving it difficult to say how the osseous 

 part is disposed. 



" But the most characteristic peculiarity of this tooth is the continuity 

 of many of its plates, and the remarkable daedalian line in which the 

 enamel is disposed. This occurs most particularly in a space in the 

 anterior part of the surface. Here one deeply undulating line of enamel 

 forms the parietes of one wide and deeply indented compages of osseous 

 plates. It is very evident that this tooth could not, upon the decompo- 

 sition of the crusta petrosa taking place, divide, in this part, into detached 

 flat plates, as in the teeth of the recent and of the common species of 

 fossil Elephants. This structure is also observable in the fossil tooth 

 from Wellsbourn (No. 616), which has been already noticed. 



" This extraordinary structure also exists in the curious and interesting 

 specimen, plate xx. fig. / (No. 613). This tooth, with the locality of which 

 I am unacquainted, having purchased it at the sale of Mr. Foster's Collec- 

 tion, is one which must have been on the point of being excluded from 

 its alveolus, the plates on its fore part being entirely worn away, and of 

 those of the posterior some very shallow portions only remaining. 

 These however are sufficient to show that the plates in this tooth were 

 formed and arranged in a similar mode with those of the preceding 

 tooth." .... "This specimen is particularly interesting from the circum- 

 stance of its showing that this particular modification of the arrangement 

 of the enamel takes place in the part of the tooth nearest to the root, as 

 the other specimens, that from Wellsbourn, and that whose surface is re- 

 presented, plate xx. fig. 5, show that it exists in the crown of the tooth. 

 From this peculiarity of structure being found to exist in three different 

 specimens, I conceive that it cannot be regarded as an accidental dif- 

 ference : and from the considerable difference which exists between this 

 arrangement of the enamel and that which occurs in the teeth of the 

 living species, and of the common fossil species, I trust it will be admitted 

 as being likely to be one of the characteristics of a species which has not 

 yet been remarked." 



