IX. Account of an Elephant's Tusk , in which the Iron Head of 
a Spear was found imbedded. By Mr. Charles Combe, of 
Exeter College , Oxford. In a Letter to the Right Hon. Sir 
Joseph Banks, Bart. K. B. P. R. S. 
Read February 19, 180 r. 
Sir, 
I have the honour of transmitting to you a fact relative to an- 
elephant’s tusk, in which the iron head of a spear was lately 
discovered to have been imbedded^. 
The tusk weighed fifty pounds : it measured six feet in length; 
and was supposed, by Mr. Pope, an eminent manufacturer at 
Birmingham, to have come from Africa, as he procured it at a 
sale in Liverpool. 
When it was delivered into the hands of the workmen, they 
perceived,, on the tusk being shaken, a rattling noise, about two 
feet and a half from the base ; and, in consequence, made a 
transverse section, somewhat below the part whence the sound 
proceeded. Here, upon enlarging the aperture by a chissel, 
they distinguished a hard extraneous body ; and, on making 
other sections, found it to be an iron spear-head, considerably 
corroded. 
It is no very uncommon circumstance to meet with brass,, 
lead, and iron musket-balls in the substance of an elephant’s 
tusk; but I believe a spear-head, in a similar situation, has not 
hitherto been observed. Besides, general appearances seem to. 
indicate, that balls are projected through the sides of the tusk.;. 
