390 
nearly resembling it; since this must be most decided evidence 
against that system which attributes an Asiatic origin to our fossils. 
This celebrated naturalist first noticed two specimens in the cabinet 
of M. de Dree, and which had been described in a Memoir by M. 
Dodun, being two portions of lower jaws which had been found near 
the last declivities of the Black Mountain, at Issel, in Languedoc, 
near Castelnaudari, by M. Dodun. Finding that the resemblance 
which these jaws bore to those of the tapir was exceedingly close, 
there being the same number of each sort of teeth, the same form in 
the molar teeth, and even the external incisive smaller than the others, 
as in the tapir, he was induced, at first, to declare, that the fossil jaw 
did not sensibly differ from the jaw of the recent animal. Subsequent 
examination, however, enabled him to discover, that a difference 
existed between the first molar teeth of the fossil and of the recent 
jaw. In the tapir of South America, all the molares have their crown 
divided into two transverse risings, of an equal width ; but in the 
fossil animal, the three first molares, instead of transverse risings, 
have a kind of points or pyramids, the foremost of which is larger 
than that which is behind it. The anterior part of the muzzle is more 
narrow and long in the common tapir, than in the fossil animal. In 
the tapir, also, the first molar is longer than any of the four or five 
following ones ; but in the fossil jaw this is the shortest. 
These, and other less differences, induced M. Cuvier to conclude, 
that the fossils of the Black Mountain belonged to some species ap- 
proaching to the tapir, but which was not precisely the same. These 
remains of an animal, the analogue of which, if living, can only exist 
in South America, are, in his opinion, entirely subversive of the notion 
of those who support the Asiatic origin of our fossils. M. Cuvier calls 
this animal the small fossil tapir. 
In the Journal de Physique for February, 1 there appeared 
the representation of a molar tooth, found in the neighbourhood of 
Vienna, and which appeared to have belonged to some large animal, 
at least resembling the tapir. Another specimen was found near St. 
