20 
DESCRIPTIONS OF INFERIOR MAXILLARY BONES 
To William Cooper, Esq., of New York, I am indebted for the oppor¬ 
tunity of examining the valuable collection of Mastodon bones, in the 
cabinet of the Lyceum of Natural History of that city; and still fur¬ 
ther, for having communicated to me some highly interesting speci¬ 
mens belonging to his private cabinet. This liberality will be at once 
appreciated by the naturalist, when it is stated, that Mr Cooper has 
himself been long engaged in the investigation of the history of the 
Mastodon ;* that he has visited Big-bone Lick, for the purpose of ob¬ 
taining materials; and that upwards of a year since, he communicated 
to the Lyceum of Natural History, New York, some observations on 
the dentition of that animal.f 
We have reason, further to hope, through the exertion of our friend, 
Professor Patterson, of the University of Virginia, to be able to exhibit 
to the Society, the lower jaw belonging to the museum of that univer¬ 
sity, noticed by Dr Godman; and also, to present a description and 
drawing of that bone. 
It may be allowable here to add, that great confidence may be placed 
in the accuracy of the drawings, which accompany this paper, and 
which were all taken with the aid of a camera lucida, by Mr Dray¬ 
ton, whose skill and accuracy in his art, the Transactions of the Society 
bear ample evidence. 
Since I had the honour of submitting to the Society, in May last, the 
preceding communication, I have been favoured by the liberality of 
the visiters of the University of Virginia, with the loan of the inferior 
maxillary bone of the Tetracaulodon , alluded to by the late Dr God- 
man in his memoir, published in the third volume, page 478, of our 
* The Society may expect to receive from Mr Cooper some of the results of these re¬ 
searches, and we have no doubt that he will supply many of the deficiencies in this memoir. 
He will also probably describe many bones of the Mastodon, which it would have taken us 
too far from our main purpose (which was to refute the belief, that Dr Godman’s animal was 
only the young of the gigantic Mastodon) to describe. 
t These have not been published, the author being unable to satisfy himself in relation to 
some points, which we have been so fortunate as to establish from the specimens in the 
cabinet of our Society. 
