ELEPHAS ANTIQUUS.—TRUE MOLARS. 
41 
Two very characteristic instances are seen in lower molars “ 589” and “ 589 a” in the 
Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. The localities are unknown, but 
their light colour is indicative of Grays Thurrock specimens. The former is entire, and 
holds x 15 x in 11 inches. This tooth, unquestionably the last of the series, would indicate 
the minimum number of ridges, as far as I have been enabled to discover. No. 589 a 
has lost its first ridge, but contains 18 x in 12 - 4 inches. In the same collection there is a 
crown sawn horizontally through the middle into two portions, Nos. 569 and 570. There 
is here a loss of ridges, leaving 16 in 10’5 inches. It is recorded from “ Brentford.” 
Another instance of the long, bent, and narrow crown, from Clacton, is in the 
possession of Dr. Bree, of Colchester, who has kindly allowed me to examine his col¬ 
lection of dredged specimens from the Norfolk coast. Dr. Bree has been at some trouble 
in ascertaining the exact positions where his specimens of teeth and bones of mammals were 
picked up by the oyster-dredgers and other persons. The specimen referred to holds 
a? 19 a? in 13*5 inches. In this superb specimen is seen all the characters of the tooth of 
E. antiquus of the type of B Variety. 
The late Mr. T. Wickham Elower showed me a suggestive example of this long, 
narrow, bow-shaped lower tooth from Grays. It held a? 18 a; in 13'5 inches. 
The foregoing may be accepted as instances of the three varieties of molar crown, and 
the intermediate conditions which unite the extremes. Thus the broad, narrow, and thick- 
plated crowns present well-marked differences, which, in the absence of specimens lying 
between these extremes, might fairly be accepted as belonging to three distinct species ; 
indeed, the differences are nearly quite as pronounced as between the two living species, 
so that looking to allied forms, the broad crown assimilates to that of the Mammoth, 
whilst the thick-plated and expanded disk is barely distinguishable from teeth of the 
African Elephant. Whatever may be the connection between Elephas antiquus and 
other forms accepted at present as distinct species, it can scarcely, I think, be denied 
that, as far as their dentitions are concerned, close alliances are traceable. Moreover, 
looking to the home of the present species in Asia, and the fossil exuviae from the Mid- 
tertiary formations of India, it does seem that the genesis of living and extinct Elephants 
is to be formulated in that region, and that one form, at all events, Elephas Namadicus, 
is seemingly the representative there of the so-called Elephas antiquus , as will be further 
shown in the sequel. 
Foreign specimens. —There is an interesting fragment of a large molar, figured and 
described by Belgrand, 1 in conjunction with a gigantic humerus, from Montreuil, near 
Paris; the latter bone will be noticed in the sequel. The crown of the tooth is clearly 
referable to E. antiquus , and from its dimensions is suggestive of the broad crown, with 
the closely packed ridges of the members of A Variety, but whether a penultimate or 
ultimate does not appear in its fragmentary state. 
A detailed account of a mandible containing molars of the thick-plated variety is given 
1 1 Basin de Paris,’ pi. xvi, p. 175. 
