EXTINCT MONSTERS. 
218 
regard to the proper relation of the Mastodon to the Mammoth 
and living elephants. 
At the entrance of the Geological Gallery in the Natural History 
Museum, South Kensington, the reader will see a magnificent 
skeleton of an American Mastodon, of which more presently. 
On this specimen our artist has based his restoration, Plate XXI. 
A large part of the great gallery referred to is devoted to the 
fossil remains of proboscideans ; that is, creatures provided with 
a long proboscis, or trunk, such as elephants and Mastodons. 
This collection, from widely different quarters, is the largest and 
Fig. 54. — Skeleton of Mastodon arvernmsis^ Pliocene, Europe. 
most complete in the world. By comparing the specimens of 
teeth in the cases, and looking at the fine specimens of skulls, 
and the numerous bones and tusks in the side cases, the reader 
will carry away a better idea than we can convey by description. 
Fig. 54 shows the skeleton of Mastodon arvernensis with two 
very long tusks. Mastodon augustidens had four tusks, two in 
each jaw, but one of those in the lower jaw sometimes dropped 
out as the animal grew older. 
No genus of quadrupeds has been more extensively diffused 
over the globe than the Mastodon. From the tropics it has 
