Descriptions of the Specimens of Inferior Maxillary Bones of Mastodons 
in the Cabinet of the American Vhilosophical Society , with Remarks 
on the genus Tetracaulodon ( Godman ), $fc. By Isaac Hays , M.D. 
Read May 20,1831. 
MY friend, the late Dr Godman, communicated to the Society about 
eighteen months since, an account of an extinct fossil animal, closely 
resembling the Mastodon in most of its characters, but differing from 
it, in possessing tusks in the lower jaw. This difference Dr Godman 
thought of sufficient importance to constitute a new genus, to which 
he gave the name of Tetracaulodon.* * * § 
The immediate subject of Dr Godman’s description having been a 
young animal,f a distinguished naturalist^: of New York suggested the 
opinion that the Tetracaulodon was nothing but the young of the gi¬ 
gantic Mastodon, and that the tusks were merely milk teeth, which 
were lost as the animal became adult.§ The same opinion has since 
been confidently advanced by others. || 
Had Dr Godman been able to examine the specimens in our cabi¬ 
nets with his own eyes, instead of being obliged to rely upon those of 
others, his own memoir would doubtless have contained all the proofs 
necessary for refuting the opinion that he had committed the error of 
* See Vol. in. N. S., p. 478. 
t Dr Godman states, however, that there are two adult jaw bones of the same animal in the 
cabinet of the University of Virginia. Vol. III. N. S., p. 484. 
£ William Cooper, Esq. 
§ See Silliman’s Journal, Vol. XIX. p. 159, 160, October 1330. 
|| See Ferussac’s Bulletin for August 1830, &c. 
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