110 
OEiaiKAL AETICLES. 
“ entered in a larger proportion into tlie food of sncli extinct species. 
But there are objections to the terms here used, as accurately expres¬ 
sive of the difference, which are opposed to the inference. It is true 
that there is a greater number of thinner enamel-plates, in the same 
extent of triturating surface, which thus becomes more composite; 
but it is not so that there is a greater proportion of dense enamel, 
nor that the crown is more complex. The greater thickness of the 
plates in the Indian species compensates for their more frequent re¬ 
petition in the fossil form ; while their strong undulation in the 
former necessarily renders the grinding surface much more complex 
than in the latter. Let any one look at the beautiful figure of the 
molar crown of the Indian Elephant in the British Eossil Mammalia, 
cut 90, p. 233, and compare it with cut 92, p. 237, of the Mammoth; 
the contrasted differences are obvious at a glance. The latter is a 
mechanism for finer disintegration ; but the former, from its conjoint 
properties of greater strength, complexity, and inequality of surface, 
is a more powerful apparatus for crushing and contusing hard ligneous 
fibre. 
Eor these reasons I cannot assent to the soundness of the asserted 
physiological inference, that a coarser kind of vegetable food, and a 
larger proportion of ligneous fibre must have entered into the sub¬ 
sistence of the Mammoth than do into that of the living Asiatic 
species, or that there was any necessary relation between the pecu¬ 
liar structure of its teeth and the subarctic arboreous vegetation of 
Siberia, seeing that the same structure holds in the molars of the 
pre-glacial Mammoth of the Norfolk coast, and in that of Central 
Italy. Professor Owen has taunted the great observers who preceded 
him, with having failed to follow up the inquiry regarding the Siberian 
Mammoth to its legitimate consequences: — 
“ It might have been expected that the physiological consequences 
“ deducible from the organization of the extinct species, which was 
“ thus, in so unusual a degree, brought to light” (i.e. the Adams 
“ Mammoth), “ would have been at once pursued to their utmost legi- 
“ timate boundary, in proof of the adaptation of the Mammoth to a 
“ Siberian climate; but save the remark, that the hairy covering of 
“ the Mammoth must have adapted it for a more temperate zone than 
“ that assigned to existing Elephants,! no further investigation of the 
“ relation of its organization to its habits, climate, and mode of life 
“ appear to have been instituted ; they have, in some instances, indeed, 
“ been rather checked than promoted.”! 
It is certainly unexpected to see it insinuated that it was left to 
Pictet to point out, in 1844, that the long hair of the extinct species 
* Brit. Foss. Mamm. p. 268. 
f “ La longue toison dont cet animal etait convert, semblerait meme demontrer, 
“ qu’il etait organise pour supporter un degre de froid plus grand que celui qui con- 
“ vient a 1’elephant de l’lnde. Pictet. Pal aeontologie, 8vo. tom. i. 1844, p. 75.” 
X British Fossil. Mamm. p. 267. 
