308 0\ THE FOSSIL BONES OF PACHYDEHMATOUS QUADRUPEDS. 



II. Bones of the Extremities. 

 Most of the large bones of the extremities of the fossil elephant are 

 remarkable for a proportional thickness, exceeding that of the corres- 

 ponding bones of the living animal ; but here we must not forget the 

 ingenious remark made by Daubenton, that as animals advance in 

 years, their bones grow thicker in proportion than they grow long : 

 a remark founded upon the neeessary operation of physical causes, and 

 upon the laws which regulate the resistance of solids. This difference 

 alone would not be sufficient to characterise a species ; but we fine 

 others, upon a closer examination of the details of the formation 

 each bone. 



1st. The Shoulder Blade. — The fossil shoulder-blades, which I had 

 placed at my disposal in the outset, were not sufficiently entire lo be 

 accurately compared with those of the living elephant : however, the 

 fragments of the Museum of Stuttgart, plate 14, figs. 10 and 11, and 

 those of our Museum, plate 13, fig. 6, exhibited a mucii stronger re- 

 semblance to the Indian than the African elephant. 



These specimens merely indicated more massive shapes, and the- 

 articulating surface of the shoulder appeared to have been larger in 

 proportion than in the living elephant. If we were to judge of the 

 form of the fossil shoulder blade by the engraving of the skeleton of 

 Mr. Adams, of which I give a copy, it would have been found to dif- 

 fer exceedingly from that of the living elephant ; but it is quite pal- 

 pable that the drawing has been made on a very limited scale, or else 

 the upper part must have undergone great mutUation. The neck there 

 appears much longer than is warranted by the proportion of the parts ; 

 this is not the case in the fragments I have seen ; which, on the con- 

 trary, would give it rather short. Then all the upper part appears 

 compressed. Having learned through the medium of a German Journal, 

 that one of the shoulder-blades of this skeleton was at Berlin, in the 

 Museum of the School of Anatomy, I addressed myself to MM- 

 Lichenstein and Rudolphi, to procure a drawing of it. These learned 

 naturalists have had the politeness to forward it to me, and I give it 

 reduced to ojie-twelfth of its natural size, plate \4, fig. 8. The ante- 

 rior edge is fractured ; but the general outline is very similar to that 

 of the Asiatic elephant, except that it appears a little broader, parti- 

 cularly in the direction of the neck. The articiilating surface, fig. 9, 

 is sensibly wider at its lower extremity, than that of the living elephant. 

 The dimensions of this shoulder-blade are as follows : — 



Length of the spine, c e 0,67 



Distance of the acramion from the point of the 



recurring apophyses, ef 0,278 



Length of the posterior edge, a b 0,46 



Distance from the posterior angle to the summit of 



spine, a c 0,643 



Distance from the summit to the foot of the articu- 

 lating surface 0,758 



Distance from the posterior angle to the tubercule 



coracoi'de, ad 0,690 



Height of the articulating surface 0,216 



Breadth 0,112 



