ON THE FOSSIL BONES OF THE ELEPHANT. 301 



certain characteristic, either between the living species or between 

 those and the fossil species. 



3. Comparison of the Skulls. 

 The skull of the elephant is too cellular, the bony plates of which it 

 is composed are too delicate, to admit of its preservation in the fossil 

 state. Hence it is that innumerable fragments of it are found; 

 but there are but false instances on record, of skulls being found in 

 such a state of preservation as to admit of the determination of their 

 characters ; and to their number we have only to add that of the entire 

 skeleton of Mr. Adams, represented in plate 17. 



The three first of these isolated skulls belong to the Academy of 

 Petersbourg *. The best of them was found on the banks of the Indig- 

 hirska, in the most eastern and the coldest region of Siberia, by that 

 learned and enterprising naturalist of Dantzic, Messerschmidt \, who 

 gave a drawing of it to his companion Breynius. The latter caused an 

 engraving of it to be annexed to a memoir, v/hich he inserted in the 

 Philosophical Transactions % ; and until the appearance of the work of 

 Mr. Adams, this was the sole document extant on that part of the ske- 

 leton of the fossil elephant. 



I have given a copy of the figure of Breynius in my plate 8, figure 1 , 

 in juxtaposition with those of Africa and India. I have had them all 

 three reduced to nearly the same scale, to facilitate the comparison of 

 their formation. We may perceive at the first glance, that both in the 

 skull and the teeth, the fossil elephant bears a much stronger resem- 

 blance to the Indian than to the Asiatic elephant. 



Unfortunately the drawing is not quite accurate enough for an exact 

 comparison, and it is not executed on a well determined projection. 

 The part of the articulating surfaces, the condyle of the lower jaws, 

 and the anterior edge of the hollow of the temple and the orbit, are 

 somewhat obKquely seen in the back, while the occiput and the mo- 

 lares are in rigorous profile. 



Nevertheless, a striking difference in the respective length of the 

 articulating surfaces of the tusks is plainly perceptible. It is three 

 times greater than that observed in the skulls of India or Africa of the 

 same dimensions, and the prolonged triturating surface of the molares, 

 instead of meeting the alveolar edges, would intersect the tube of the 

 socket at the third part of its length. 



This difference becomes the more important from the circumstance 

 of its agreement with the form of the lower jaw, as vv^e shall see farther 

 on; and as we have before observed, it necessitated a diff'erence of for- 

 mation in the trunk of the fossil elephant ; for either the junction of 

 the muscles of the trunk were the same, that is, above the nose and 

 the lower edge of the sockets of the tusks — and in that case the base of 

 that organ was three times thicker in our living elephants — or else the 

 fastenings of the muscles were different ; and in that case it follows 

 more decidedly, that the entire structure must have been different. If 



* Pallas' Nov. Comment, ac. Petrop., xiii, p. 472. 



f Idem, Ibidem. 



X Vol. xl, No. 446, plates 1 and 2. 



