ELEPI1AS. 



The antepenultimate molar (fig. 142, m i) consists of four 

 ridges and a talon. The penultimate has the same structure 

 on a larger scale (fig. 1 43, m 2 ) : the last grinder, m 3, is both 

 larger and more complex. 



In the proboscidian quadrupeds, the molar teeth progres- 

 sively increasing in size, and most of them in complexity, 

 follow each other from before backwards at longer intervals 

 than in other quadrupeds, and the series is never simultane- 

 ously in place : not more than three are in use at any period 

 on one side of either jaw : all the molars, save the penulti- 

 mate (fig. 143, m 2) are shed by the time the crown of the last 

 molar has cut the gum : the dentition is finally reduced to m 3 

 on each side of both jaws, with commonly the loss of the in- 

 ferior tusks, as in the old Mastodon turicencis (fig. 140), from 

 the tertiary deposits of the Po, described and figured by 

 Sismonda* 



The genus was represented by species ranging, in time, 

 from the miocene to the upper pliocene deposits, and in space, 

 cosmopolitan with tropical and temperate latitudes. The 

 transition from the mastodontal to the elephantine type of 

 dentition is very gradual. 



Genus Elephas, L. — The latest form of true elephant which 



obtained its suste- 



a 



nance in temperate 

 latitudes is that 

 which Blumenbach 

 called primicfcnius, the 

 " Mammoth " of the 

 Siberian collectors of 

 its tusks (fig. 147). 

 Its remains occur 

 chiefly, if not exclu- 

 sively, in post-pliocene deposits, and have even been found in 



* Osteografia di un Mastodonte Angustidente, 4to, Turin, 1851. 



Upper grinder of the Mammoth (Elephas primi- 

 genius). 



