The tusk which belongs to the skeleton at Philadelphia, I have brought with me: in taking it from the ground it was broken into three pieces, but they were carefully put together, and give the entire form, composed of a strong arch and a spiral twist resembling an ox’s horn, ten feet six inches in length and twenty-one inches in circumference. In the Leverian Museum there is a fossil elephant’s tusk found in England, about seven feet in length: On making a comparison between these it will be observed, that in the Leverian tusk there is not the smallest twist, and but a gentle curve; whereas in this animal they are much more crooked in every respect; the consequence of which is, that as the cavities for the reception of the tusks lie more horizontal (from a similar direction between the teeth and the condyle of the neck), the tusks are much more elevated, and the ends pointing backwards. It is the opinion of many, that these tusks might have been reversed in the living animal, with their points downwards; but as we know not the kind of enemy it had to fear, we judged only by analogy in giving them the direction of the elephant, especially as we know of no other carnivorous animal with only eight grinders and two tusks: Neither the tusk itself, nor the cavities for the reception of them, could assist in the determination, as they were both very straight, and would equally answer one way as the other.
There is one bone less in the neck of this animal than in the elephant; and we are confident of having the whole, for two reasons; _1st_, The neck-bones were found with the first skeleton all together, in their natural positions, and the first bone of the back, with which the sixth vertebræ of the neck articulated as exactly as it did with the fifth; and, from the configuration of these bones, every anatomist knows this could not be the case was there a bone wanting: This is strong presumption, had we not the completely satisfactory proof of finding them all together. And, _2dly_, Among the collections of bones which we have seen, we have never met with a single bone resembling a seventh vertebra of the neck.
It was a more difficult task to determine the number of dorsal and lumber vertebræ, as those we dug up ourselves were not only found much scattered, but several which had been dug up by the farmer were in the possession of some of the workmen in the neighbourhood, to the distance of seven miles round: these we collected with all possible care, and had the satisfaction to find they agreed in number with those of the elephant; still further corroborated by a perfect agreement between them and the nineteen pair of ribs, leaving three vertebræ for the loins.