Excerpt from Fauna Antiqua Sivalensis, Vol. 1: Being the Fossil Zoology of the Sewalik Hills, in the North of India; Proboscidea This great diversity of opinion, almost unequalled in regard to any other section of mammalian palaeontology, has in a great measure arisen from the isolated and often defective nature of the materials relating to this tribe, as they ordinarily come before the palaaontologist. From the peculiar mode of succession of the molar teeth, which yield the principal distinctive characters in Mastodon and Elephant, by repeated renewals from back to front, at different stages of the animal's growth, as the worn and ex hansted grinders drop out, a limited number only of the whole series can be met with in any one fossil specimen, even under the most favourable conditions. It is this peculiarity which has so long retarded the attainment of an accurate knowledge of the dentition of the living species. The difficulty applies with double weight to the fossil species, ' for the teeth are rarely met with in connexion with perfect crania and jaws: they most frequently occur detached, or connected with mutilated fragments. It is only, therefore, from the comparison of an extensive series of specimens. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.