APPENDIX. 



175 



C — Page 79. 



The following extract is taken from a letter of Edward Charlesworth, Esq., editor of the 

 " London Geological Journal," Secretary of the British Natural History Society, &c, and was 

 written by that gentleman in consequence of my showing to him in London, in September, 

 1S51, a cast of the tooth in question. Whereon Mr. Charlesworth immediately declared, that 

 this was the tooth he had seen in Baltimore, and pronounced to be a tooth of Mastodon 

 Longirostris ; and which he had purchased in London for Dr. Wilson, who deposited it in 

 the Collection of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, where it had been seen by 

 Dr. Hays and myself. 



At the same time with Mr. Charlesworth, in London, the cast was unexpectedly exhibited 

 to Sir Charles Lyell, who at once recognized the tooth, and expressed his astonishment to find 

 it in my possession. 



"Museum, York, Sept. 12, 1851. 



" Dear Sir, — I have great pleasure in replying to your inquiries respecting the Mastodon 

 tooth from the tertiary deposits of Maryland, and giving you the substance of the statement 

 which I have recently communicated to Dr. Wilson, of Philadelphia. 



" During a visit to the United States in 1840, I endeavored to ascertain whether any traces 

 of Mastodon had there been detected in deposits of the true tertiary epoch. Among various 

 geologists, to whom I named the subject, was Dr. Duchatel ; and this led him to tell me of a 

 tooth in the Baltimore Museum, the finder of which, as I understood Dr. Duchatel, had given 

 it to him with a positive assurance of its having occurred in a marl-pit, the marl in question 

 being well known to be tertiary. Dr. Duchatel told me that he did not at all question the good 

 faith in which this statement was made ; but that he thought the tooth had probably fallen into 

 the tertiary marl from some overlying, more recent, deposit. Subsequently to this conversation, 

 when going over the Baltimore Museum, the first thing I thought of was this tooth ; and, upon 

 its being shown me, I was gratified beyond measure to find it exhibit the precise characters of the 

 Mastodon teeth from the English crag, and which are referable to the Mastodon Angustidens 

 or Mastodon Longirostris, species regarded by Professor Owen as synonymous. These charac- 

 ters escaped the notice of Dr. Duchatel ; and, upon my pointing them out to him, all doubt as to 

 the tooth being of tertiary origin was at once removed. As I named to Dr. Harlan, and other 

 American naturalists, the important addition thus made to the fossil Fauna of the United 

 States, I fully expected to see some account of it published ; but, so far as I am aware, the 



