60 • ODONTOGRAPHY. 



Attention to the preceding statements will demonstrate the develop- 

 ment of the first five teeth. The existence of a sixth tooth at a subsequent 

 period, which is generally admitted, proves that the elephant is capable of 

 attaining a very great age ; and this would be extended much beyond any 

 thing we are acquainted with at the present day, if we admit the opinion 

 of some naturalists, that there may be a seventh and even an eighth tooth 

 on each side. 



Elephant The teeth of the elephant are, at first view, widely different from those 



and 



Mastodon of the Mastodon ; but the organs, apparently so dissimilar to each other, 



Teeth 



allied. are connected together by intervening links. First, we notice in some 

 Asiatic elephants, that the oval projections of enamel, instead of forming 

 a continuous ridge, are partially divided transversely, so as to form an 

 incipient approximation to the mammellatecl arrangement of the Mas- 

 todon. 



The teeth of the Elephas Primigenius, of Alabama, in the southern 

 part of the United States, are vast compared with those of the modern 

 elephants. Out of thirty in my possession, none of which are perfect, one, 

 partially developed, is thirteen inches long, and six and a half in depth. It 

 exhibits ten ridges and a posterior surface, from which others had been 

 broken. The width of this tooth cannot be measured from its obliquity ; 

 but a portion of another, of about the same size, measures five inches in 

 width. The lamina? are narrower, and are not so much separated from 

 each other as in the Asiatic. 



In the fossil jaw first described by Mr. Clift, of the Hunterian Museum, 

 and to which he gave the name of Mastodon Elephantoides, the ridges rise 



