FLOOR.] 
FOSSILS. 
37 
Indian species of Mastodon were coeval with the fossil Elephants from 
the same country. The two genera, Eleplias and Mastodon, have 
much resemblance in most of the characters exhibited in their skele- 
tons, but they differ considerably in their dentition. In the Elephant 
the grinding tooth is made up of a number of flattened plates cemented 
together, each plate being enclosed by enamel ; the enamel being con- 
siderably harder than the other substances which compose the tooth, 
wears less readily, and hence projects in the form of transverse ridges 
on the crown of the tooth, which has been subjected to much attrition. 
The crown of the tooth in the Mastodons presents, before it is worn, a 
number of conical prominences, which are more or less united in the 
transverse direction of the tooth, so as to form high ridges. 
Nearly allied to the Mastodons is the extraordinary animal the 
Dinotherium, of which the skull, lower jaws of individuals of different 
ages, and detached teeth, will be found in Wall Cases No. 2, between 
the windows. Here it will be seen that the large tusks with which 
the animal was provided, instead of being in the upper jaw, are im- 
planted in the lower jaw, and are directed downwards. 
In Wall Case No. 1 are exhibited fossil remains and casts of large 
extinct quadrupeds of the Marsupial, or pouched order, which have 
been recently discovered in tertiary formations in Australia. Of these 
the most gigantic is the Diprotodon Australis, the skull of which mea- 
sures upwards of three feet in length, and exhibits a dentition corre- 
sponding, in the number of teeth and in the shape of the grinders, 
with that of the Kangaroo, but resembling that of the Wombat in the 
large size and curvature of the front incisors. Some of the bones of 
the Diprotodon nearly equal in size the corresponding bones of the 
Elephant. A fossil lower jaw, and the cast of the skull of a smaller 
herbivorous marsupial quadruped (Nototherium Mitchelli, Owen), are 
here shown. This animal equalled an ox in size. The largest 
aboriginal quadrupeds now known to exist in Australia are the great 
Kangaroos; and it is to the Kangaroo family that the above-named 
extinct species present the nearest affinities. In this Case is also placed 
remains of a large Marsupial Tiger, the Thylacoleo carnifeo:, from 
Darling Downs, near Sydney, and of the great Wombat (Phascolomys 
gigas). 
At the end of the room opposite the entrance doorway, is the Fossil 
Human Skeleton brought from Guadaloupe in the West Indies by Sir 
Alexander Cochrane, and presented to the Museum by the Lords Com- 
missioners of the Admiralty. Human skeletons are found in the 
island just mentioned in a solid and very hard limestone rock, which 
occurs on the sea-shore at the base of the cliffs, and which is more or 
less covered by the sea at high water. The rock is composed of sand, 
the detritus of shells and corals of species still inhabiting the adjacent 
sea ; it also contains some species of land shells, identical with those 
now living on the Island : and, accompanying the skeletons, are found 
arrow-heads, fragments of pottery, and other articles of human work- 
manship. Beneath this specimen are placed masses of stalagmito 
containing imbedded bones and skulls, the remains of aborigines, from 
