194 APPENDIX. 



THE DUSINA MASTODON. 



The scientific world will be gratified to learn, that the want of a skeleton of the Mastodon 

 Angustidens has been partially supplied by the discovery of a large number of its bones in Pied- 

 mont, in Italy. From a work published at Turin, 1851, entitled " Osteografia di un Mastodonte 

 Angustidente, illustrato dal Professore Eugenio Sismonda," we learn that the discovery took 

 place in the following manner. 



Discovery. — In the latter part of September, 1849, the laborers on the railroad between 

 Dusina and Villa Franca, not far from Turin, came upon some fossil remains. The directors of 

 the railroad, being forewarned of the probability of similar discoveries, sent word, through the 

 superintendent-general of railroads, Chevalier Bona, to the directors of the Mineralogical Museum 

 at Turin. They entrusted the delicate work of exhumation to Sig. Francis Comba, curator of 

 the Zoological Museum, whose persevering industry and great personal attention in its removal 

 to Turin are worthy of the highest praise. Four months more were devoted by him to the labor 

 of restoration, in the way of cleansing, drying, and repairing the fragments by an aqueo-alcoholic 

 solution of isinglass. 



The name of the village in which this discovery was made was Solbrito. The remains 

 were situated in a fluvio-lacustrine deposit, at the depth of about twenty-six feet from the surface, 

 in company with other pachydermatous remains, and some invertebrated terrestrial fossils. They 

 rested upon a layer of nearly plastic clay, covered by other layers of sand and gravel. Conse- 

 quently, the water, after penetrating the superimposed layers, could not soak through the clay, 

 and therefore hastened the destruction of the skeleton ; rendering very difficult the extraction of 

 even some of the most resisting parts, such as the tusks, femora, humeri, &c. 



The fossil shells found in connection with this Mastodon were the Unio, closely allied to the 

 Unio pictorum, Lam. ; the Helix, if not the type, at least a variety, of the Helix lactea, Mull. ; 

 the Paludina, not specifically different from the Paludina lenta, Brander; and the Clausilia, 

 a solitary specimen, and apparently a distinct species. At a short distance from the skeleton 

 were found teeth of the elephant, horns of the cervus, the mandible of a rhinoceros, and, in the 

 more superficial argillo-calcareous layers, the head of a marmot. In the same deposit, but more 

 towards Ferrara, in company with Mastodon molars and a magnificent tusk, were found teeth 

 of the Hippopotamus and Tapir. 





