OF LIVING ELEPHANTS, 205 



^, g. Extremity of the transverse lamella of the capsule. 

 h, h. Bases of the small transverse walls of the pulpy nucleus. 

 ij i, i. Lamella of the tooth which envelope them. 

 k, k. Enamel which commences to be deposited on these lamellee. 

 Fig. 4 represents the last small walls of the pulpy nucleus, de- 

 tached from the rest and separated from each other. 



a. The lamella horn-shaped, which had commenced to form on the 

 dentuli of the most anterior. 



b. Those which only arose on the dentuli of the penultimate, 



c. The last of all, which had as yet no hard envelope. 



Fig. 5. A lamella of the germ of the tooth of an elephant of India, 

 seen on its broad surface. 



a, a. Its part, which must soon pass out of the capsule and the gum, 

 and where may be already seen the cortical part, spread as it were in 

 drops. 



b, b. Its middle portion, where there is as yet, on the substance 

 called osseous, merely the enamel, like velvet-down. 



c, c. Its portion of the base, where the substance called osseous is 

 still exposed, without enamel or cortical substance. 



Fig. 6. A similar lamella of the elephant of Africa. 

 a. The ridge (arete), which gives to the section of the lamellae of this 

 species the figure of a lozenge. 



. Article III. 

 On the Tusks of the Elephants, the Structure, Growth, distinctive 

 Characters of Ivory, and on its Diseases. — Conclusion of the Ge- 

 neral Remarks on the Teeth. 



Wk shall not stop to refute the opinion of some moderns*, that the 

 tusks of the elephants are horns. This is an old notion maintained by 

 Pausanias f , already completely refuted by Philostratus X, and one no 

 longer entertained by any person. 



On the contrary, most of the anatomists who think that the teeth 

 grow, as ordinary bones, by a sort of intus-susception, take their 

 proofs from ivory, from its diseases, and injuries. 



However, ivory is formed, as the other teeth, of successive layers 

 transuded (transudees) by tlie pulpy nucleus. 



I myself opened the alveolus of the base of a tusk on a fresh ele- 

 phant, and there I clearly saw a pulpy nucleus of enormous size and 

 entirely destitute of all organic union with the tusk, which it had how- 

 ever secreted. Though the subject was perfectly fresh, there was not 

 seen the least adhesion between the tusk and the nucleus : not the 

 least fibre, nor the most minute vessel; no cellular connexion between 

 them. The nucleus was in the cavity of the tusk as a sword in its 

 scabbard, and itself adhered only to the fundus of its alveolus. 



The tusk is then, in its alveolus, as a nail driven into a board; 

 nothing retains it there but the elasticity of the parts which inclose 



* Ludolph. ^thiop., lib. 1, cap. 10; Pcrrault, dans la Description, de I'Elephant 

 de Versailles, &c. 



t Lib. V. cap. 12. 



* Vita Apollinii, lib. ii, cap. 13. 



VOL. 1, V 



