392 



PALEONTOLOGY. 



turbary near Holyhead. Its grinders (fig. 144) are broader, and 

 have narrower and more numerous and close-set transverse 

 plates and ridges, than in other elephants. In the existing 

 Indian species, e.g. (fig. 145), the molars are relatively narrower, 



Fig. 145. 



Upper molar, Asiatic Elephant. 



the plates (d cl) are less numerous, and their enamelled border 

 (e e) is festooned. In the African elephant (fig. 146) the plates 



Fig. 146. 

 Upper molar, African Elephant. 



are still fewer, are relatively larger, and so expanded at the 

 middle as to present a lozenge shape. The Elephas prisms-, 

 Gdf., of European pliocene beds, has molars most like those 

 of the present African species. The tusks of the elephant, 

 like those of the Mastodon, consist of true ivory, which shews, 

 in transverse fractures or sections, striae proceeding in the 

 arc of a circle from the centre to the circumference in oppo- 

 site directions, and forming, by their decussations, curvilinear 



