Dimensions of p 3 in Tapirus priscus. T. sinensis. T. malayanus.
in. lines. in. lines. in. lines.
Greatest transverse diameter 0 11-1/2 1 3 1 1 Antero-posterior diameter 0 10-1/2 1 0 0 11
Among minor differences may be noted a better development in
the Chinese tooth of the inner extension of the hind part of the
cingulum (r'), and a ridged production of opposite sides of the contiguous
bases of the two elongate compressed conical lobes (c, d) at
their inner ends, meeting, as it were, to close the inner entry to their
dividing valley, e.
Compared with Tapirus priscus, from the Eppelsheim miocene, the Chinese tooth is still larger than it is in comparison with the Sumatran species, and its transverse extension of crown is greater ; the degree is given in the above admeasurements*. The fangs are broken away from this premolar ; and in the hollow of the post- external root were crystals, determined by my friend and colleague, Professor Maskelyne, to be calcite in complete scalenohedra, a form or condition of carbonate of lime commonly met with in limestone caves. This was satisfactory in the degree in which it was confirmatory of the statement that the fossils were from a cave.
The next molar, in the degree of transverse contraction of the hinder half of the crown, answers to the penultimate molar, m 2; it is from the left side ; the pulp-cavity, exposed by the breaking away of the fang, is partially filled with a reddish earth.
Dimensions of m 2 in Tapirus priscus. T. Sinensis. T. Malayanus.
in. lines. in. lines. in. lines.
Transverse diameter 1 0 1 3 1 2 Antero-posterior diameter 0 10 1 2 1 0
The part of the cingulum continued inward from that which bends up the back part of the rear ridge is better developed in Tapirus sinensis than in Tapirus malayanus.
The third upper molar (Pl. XXVIII. fig. 9) is the last of the right side, and repeats the differential characters, as to size, of the two preceding molars, as compared with Tapirus malayanus and T. priscus. The antexternal root is preserved, part of the postexternal one, and the base of the confluent pair supporting the inner side of the crown (c, d); in the cavity of the fang, exposed by fracture, were also crystals of calcite. The divergence of the outer and inner fangs carries the transverse breadth of that part of the tooth much beyond the same diameter of the crown.
In the left lower penultimate premolar, p 3 (Pl. XXIX. fig. 6), besides a difference of size as compared with its homologne in Tapirus malayanus, there is a marked superiority of development of the ridge (t), continued from the outer angle of the anterior lobes (a) forward and inward, circumscribing a cavity in front of that lobe, — also in the height of the corresponding ridge from the outer angle of the
- It may also be estimated by comparing fig. 8, Pl. XXVIII. with fig. 9, p. 231,
'Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society,' vol. xii. 1856, " Upper molar of Tapirus priscus, from the Crag of Suffolk."
2 g 2
