The total number of teeth developed in the elephant appears to 6-6 = 28.
0--0' Di. 6-6 The two large permanent tusks being pre ceded by two small deciduous ones, and the number of molar teeth which follow one another on each side of both jaws beihg at " The socket of the permanent tusk in a new-born elephant, is a round cell about three lines in diameter, situated on the inner and posterior side of the aperture of the temporary socket. The permanent tusks cut the gum when about an inch in length, a least six, of which the last three may, by analogy, be regarded as answering to the true molars of other Pachyderms. I have shown in my Odontography that : " The deciduous tusk makes its appearance beyond the gum between the fifth and seventh mouth ; it rarely exceeds two inches in length, and is about a third of an inch in diameter at its thickest part, where it protrudes from the socket ; the fang is solidified, and con tracts to its termination, which is commonly a little bent, and is considerably absorbed by the time the tooth is shed, which takes place between the first and second year.t month or two, usually, after the milk-tusks are shed. At this period, according to Mr. Corse it, the permanent tusks are ' black and ragged at the ends. When they become longer, and project beyond the lip, they soon are worn smooth by the motion and friction of the trunk.' Their widely open base is fixed upon a conical pulp, which, with the capsule stir rounding the base of the tusk and the socket, continues to increase in size and depth, ob literating all vestiges of that of the deciduous tusk, and finally extending its base close to the nasal aperture (fig. 592.). The tusk is formed by successive calcification of layers of the pulp in contact with the inner surface of the pulp cavity ; and, being subject to no habitual attrition from an opposed tooth, but being worn only by the occasional uses to which it is applied, it arrives at an extraor dinary length, following the curve originally impressed upon it by the form of the socket, and gradually widening from the projecting apex to that part which was formed when the matrix and the socket had reached their full size.
" These incisive teeth of the elephant not only surpass other teeth in size, as belonging to a quadruped so enormous, but they are the largest of all teeth in proportion to the size of the body; representing in a natural state those monstrous incisors of the Rodents, which are the result of accidental suppression of the wearing force of the opposite teeth."
The tusks of the elephant, like those of the Mastodon, consist chiefly of that modifi cation of dentine which is called "ivory," and whiCh shows, on transverse fractures or sec tions, strim proceeding in the arc of a circle from the centre to the circumference, in op posite directions, and forming by their decus sations curvilinear lozenges. This character is peculiar to the Proboscidian Pachyderms.
In the Indian elephant the tusks are always short and straight in the female, and less deeply in:planted than in the male : she thus retaining, as usual, more of the charac ters of the immature state. In the male they have been known to acquire a length of nine feet, with a basal diameter of eight inches, and to weigh one hundred and fifty pounds ; but these dimensions are rare in the Asiatic Species.
Mr. Corse, speaking of the variety of Indian elephant, called "Dauntelah " from its large tusks, which project almost horizontally with a slight curve upwards and outwards, says," The largest I have known in Bengal did not exceed seventy-two pounds avoirdupois ; at Tiperah they seldom exceed fifty pounds." There are varieties of the Dauntelah in which the large tusks of the male are nearly or quite straight ; and in a more marked breed called " Mooknah," the tusks are much smaller, are straight, and point directly downwards. These ascertained varieties in an existing species ought to weigh with the observers of analo gous varieties in the teeth of fossil Probos cidians, before they pronounce definitely on their value as characters of distinct species. More anomalous varieties occasionally pre sent themselves in the Indian Elephant, as when one tusk is horizontal, the other ver tical; or when, from some distortion of the alveolus, a spiral direction is impressed upon the growth of the tusk, as in that specimen figured by Grew in the "Rarities of Gresham College," Tab. 4., and which is now in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, London. The tusk of the elephant is slightly moveable in its socket, and readily receives a new direction of growth from habitual pres sure ; this often causes distorted tusks in captive elephants, and Cuvier * relates the mode in which advantage was taken of the same impressibility, in order to rectify the growth of such tusks in an elephant kept at the Garden of Plants.