FALCONEE ON THE AMEEICAN FOSSIL ELEPHANT. 
105 
do not get worn down with sufficient rapidity to make way for the 
tooth forming behind, and abnormal or morbid results follow:— 
1st. The used surface of the crown, instead of being unequal and 
terraced, is worn smooth and flat, in some instances even, like a slab 
of polished marble. 
2nd. The uncalcified back portion of the capsule of the tooth in 
action, instead of remaining distinct, becomes, from the undue pres¬ 
sure behind, united with the formative capsule of the contiguous 
back tooth, the development of which is not retarded, and the two 
separate molars are fused into one unwieldy mass, covered by a con¬ 
tinuous shell of cement. A fine example of this state is presented 
by an adolescent cranium in the Museum of the College of Surgeons, 
(No. 2665, Osteol. Cat.) in which two molars, and apparently part 
of the third in front, are united into one; and the pressure has, be¬ 
sides, acted so as to contract the palate, and bring the opposite mo¬ 
lars nearly into contact in front. 
3rd. The anterior fangs of the tooth in action are gradually absorbed, 
while the corresponding portion of the crown remains unworn, and is 
projected forwards, like a foreign body, beyond the edge of the alveo¬ 
lus. I observed a very remarkable instance of this morbid condition 
in the cranium of a ‘ Mukna’ Elephant, preserved in the Natural 
History Museum at Elorence. On the right side, in this specimen, 
there are three molars in situ : the last in germ, the penultimate 
partly worn, and agglutinated to it in front, the extruded body, with¬ 
out fangs, of the antepenultimate, which is projected forwards and 
upwards across the diasternal interval, so as actually to press against 
the palatine floor of the maxillary bones. In this case the morbid 
pressure had caused the absorption of the plate of bone forming the 
base of the sheath of the incisor, which is indicated by a deep pit, and 
it probably led to the death of the animal, with great torture. 
4th. The capsule of the last molar being constrained for room, by 
the undue resistance in front of it, there is not sufficient space for 
the normal arrangement of all the plates as they are successively 
calcified, and the hindermost become distorted in position. A fine 
example of this malformation is presented by the last lower molar, 
fig. 90, of the ‘ British Fossil Mammalia.’* The tooth is there 
described, as being of the Mammoth, but it is in reality a molar, 
disguised and blackened by smoke, of an Asiatic Elephant, which 
had died in captivity. The back plates, in this case, are pressed and 
crowded upwards so as to have become nearly horizontal. Similar 
instances are figured by Blainville,f without his having been aware 
of the nature and cause of the distortion. 
* Op. cit. pp. 226 and 233, and Cat. Foss. Mam. &c. Coll, of Sur. No. 567, p. 134. 
It is the more necessary to make the rectification here indicated, since the figure has 
been copied by an eminent French Palaeontologist, on the authority of the work, as a 
characteristic specimen of E. primigenius. Vide Memoires Acad. Montpell. tom. i. 
p. 423, PI. xv. fig. 9 V 
f Osteographie, Elephant, PI. vii. fig. 6, and PI. x. fig. 6. 
