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The females of the East-Indian elephants have but short and small 
tusks, projecting obliquely downwards. The African elephants, both 
male and female, appear to have large tusks. The degree, and even 
the direction of the curvature of these tusks, vary considerably. 
M. Cuvier is satisfied, from actual comparison of several skulls of 
the East-Indian and African elephants, that different specific cha- 
racters exist in their respective skulls. In the Indian elephant, the 
top of the skull is raised in a kind of double pyramid but, in the 
African, it is nearly rounded. In the Indian the forehead is concave, 
and in the African it is rather convex. Several other differences 
exist, not necessary to be here particularized, which seem to be fully 
sufficient to mark a difference of species. 
A cursory view is sufficient to enable us to determine that the or- 
dinary fossil teeth of elephants are not of the African species ; and it 
may be further said, that the greater number of these teeth bear a 
close resemblance to the East-Indian species, showing, on their mas- 
ticating surface, bands of an equal thickness through their whole 
length, and rudely crenulated. So great, indeed, is the resemblance, 
that Pallas, and most other writers, have considered the fossil elephant 
as being of the same species with the Asiatic. 
That the fossil elephants were specifically different from the Asiatic 
elephant, M. Cuvier had been long of opinion ; and although the ob- 
servations of his friend, M. Adrian Camper, made him for a time 
hesitate, he became confirmed in his opinion from the circumstance, 
that he almost always found the plates, in the fossil species, thinner, 
occupying sensibly a less space ; and being, consequently, in greater 
number, in the same length, than in the recent teeth. From this 
difference in the thickness of the plates, it follows that the number of 
these plates which are brought into action at once, should be greater 
in the fossil than in the Asiatic. Mr. Corse observes, that in the 
latter there are seldom more than ten or twelve in use at once ; but 
in the fossil teeth, there are frequently twenty-four. M. Cuvier 
