Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/655

Rh M A S M A S 623 surrounded by a border of enamel, and as the attrition proceeds different patterns are produced by the union of the bases of the cusps, a trilobed or trefoil form being characteristic of some species. Certain of the molar teeth of the middle of the series in both Elephants and Mastodons have the same number of principal ridges, and those in front of them have fewer and those bshind a greater number. These teeth were distinguished as &quot; intermediate &quot; molars by Dr Falconer, to whose extensive and conscientious researches we owe much of our knowledge of the structure of this group of animals. In the restricted genus Eleplias there are only two, the last milk molar and the first true molar (or the third and fourth of the whole series), which are alike in the number of ridges ; whereas in the Mastodons there are three such teeth, the last milk molar and the first and second true molars (or the third, fourth, and fifth of the whole series). In the Elephants the number of ridges on the intermediate molars always exceeds five, but in the Mastodons it is nearly always three or four, and the tooth in front has usually one fewer and that behind one more, so that the ridge formula (i.e., a formula expressing the number of ridges on each of the six molar teeth) of most Mastodons can be reduced either to 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4 or 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5. The former characterizes the section called Trilophodon, and the latter that called Tetralophodon by Dr Falconer. These divisions are very useful, as under one or the other all the present known species of Mastodon can be ranged, but observations upon a larger number of individuals have shown that the number of ridges upon the teeth is by no means so constant as implied by the mathematical formulae given above. Their exact enumeration is even difficult in many cases, as &quot; talons &quot; or small accessory ridges at the hinder end of the teeth occur in various stages of develop ment, until they take on the character of true ridges. Transitional conditions have also been shown, at least in some of the teeth, between the trilophodont and the tetralophodont forms, and again between the latter and what has been called a &quot; pentalophodont &quot; type, which leads on towards the condition of dental structure characteristic of the true Elephants. The range of the genus Mastodon in time was from the middle of the Miocene period to the end of the Pliocene in the Old World, when they became extinct ; but in America several species especially the best-known, owing to the abundance of its remains, which has been variously called M. ohioticus, M. americanus, and M. giganteus survived quite to a late Pleistocene period. The range in space will be best indicated by the following list of the generally recognized species. 1. Trilophodont series M. angustidens, borsoni, pentelici, pyrenaicus, tapiroides (orturiccnsis), virgatidens, from Europe ; M. falconeri and pandionis, from India ; M. ohioticus, obscurus,&ii&amp;lt;{productus,~North America ; and M.andmm and humboldtii, South America. 2. Tetralophodont series M. arvernensis, M. dissimilis and longirostris, from Europe ; M. latidens, sivalensis, and peramcnsis, from India; M. mirificus, from North America. The only two of which remains have been found in Great Britain are M. arvernensis and M. borsoni, both from the crags of Norfolk and Suffolk. The range of the genus was thus very extensive, and it has even been supposed to reach to Australia, where no Ungulate mammal has ever been proved to-exist. This supposition until very recently has been based upon the evidence of a single molar tooth of an animal undoubtedly belonging to Mastodon, and alleged to have been brought from near Boree Creek, an affluent of the Lachlan river in the Ashburnham district, New South Wales, by the late Count Strzelecki, and described by Professor Owen in 1844 under the name of M. australis. Its identity with the South American M. andium has, however, been shown by Dr Falconer, who has thrown grave doubts upon the locality assigned to the specimen. A fragment of a tusk, of the Australian origin of which there is less question, and which presents the characteristic structure only known at present in Elephants and Mastodons, has been lately described by Professor Owen (Proc. Roy. Soc., March 30, 1882). It was found in a drift-deposit of a ravine in a district of Darling Downs, 60 miles to the eastward of Moreton Bay, Queensland. Unfortunately no other portions of the remains of the animal to which it belonged have been discovered. Bibliography. Cw wr, Osscmens Fossi es; Falconer and Cautley, Fauna Antiqua Sivalensit, 1846-47 ; H. Falconer, Palteontoloyical Memoirs, edited by C. Murchlson, 18(i8; Warren, Description of the Skeleton of Mastodon gigantetu, 1852 ; Owen, British Fossil Mammals ; Lartct, &quot; Sur la dentition des 1 robosd- diens, Ac.,&quot; in Bull, de la Soc. ^.ieologiq^^e de France, ser. 2, vol. xvi. p. 469, 1859; A. Gaudry, Animaux Fossi/es et Geoloyie de VAttique, 18S2-67; J. l.cidy, Con tributions to Extinct Vertebrate Fauna of the Western Territories, vol. i., 1873 ; R. Lydvkker, &quot; Siwalik and Naibada i roboscidea,&quot; in Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India, 1880. (W. H. F.) MAS lJDY. Abu l-Hasan All ibn Hosein ibn All el-Mas udy, 1 was born at Baghdad towards the close of the 9th Christian century. Great part of his life was spent in travel; in 912-13 A.D. he was at Miiltan in the Punjab, and also visited Mansura. Three years later he was at Basra and met Abu Zeid, the geographer whose remarks on the extreme East are comprised in Reinaud s Relation des Voyages (Paris, 1845). His writings and those of Mas udy are indebted each to the other. In the interval it would seem our traveller had gained that personal acquaintance with Fars and Susiana, and that knowledge of the books of the Persians, of which he speaks in his writings. Once more turning eastward he was at Cambay in 915-16, and soon after at Saimiir. Hence he pushed on to Ceylon and sailed to Madagascar, returning to Oman in 916-17. In the introduction to the Meadows he seems also to say that he bad journeyed as far as China. A northern journey carried Mas udy as far as the Caspian Sea. In 926 he was at Palestine, where his curiosity, not limited by religious prejudice, led him to visit the Christian church and describe its relics. In 943-44 he made a careful study of the ruins of Antioch, and subsequently proceeded to Basra. In the same year he composed the Meadoivs of Gold. The last ten years of his life were passed in Syria and Egypt. His last work, The Indicator and Monitor, was written 345 A.H., and his death took place in Egypt the same year (956-57 A.D.). 2 The vast journeys of Mas udy did not pass beyond the lines of com mercial enterprise among the Moslems of those days, when Irak was not unjustly held to be the centre of the world, and the arms, the trade, and the religion of Islam pene trated to the remotest parts of Asia and Africa. But Mas udy did not travel for gain. His object was to study with his own eyes the peculiarities of every land, and to collect whatever was of interest for archaeology, history, and manners. Singularly free from bigotry he was himself a Mo tazilite, one of the heretical sect, as they were reckoned, who held the doctrine of man s free will he was ready to derive information even from the writings of infidel Persians or of a Christian bishop. 3 In the range of his observations and the naive uncritical honesty with which he records them he has naturally suggested com parison with Herodotus, and so competent a judge as Ibn Khaldun gives him the title of imam of Eastern historians, an epithet precisely parallel to that borne by Herodotus among the historians of the West. The parallel, however, must be taken with great deductions. Of the Meadows, the work by which Mas udy is chiefly known, by far the greater part is an historical compilation, enlivened indeed in some parts by personal recollection of places and the like, but mainly drawn from a vast mass of earlier books 4 which are used in the common paste-and scissors fashion of Eastern history. Even in the earlier cosmographical chapters the author s vast and miscellaneous reading, which included the Arabic translations of Ptolemy and other Greek writers, is mingled with his original observa- 1 The surname is derived from an ancestor Mas ud, a Meccan, whose son Abdalla accompanied Mohammed on his flight to Medina, and is often mentioned in the history of the prophet. Details as to the family are given by Reiske, Ann. Mos., vol. i., note 208. 2 See De Sacy, direst., 1st ed., ii. 490. 3 In the Meadows, iii. 69, he tells us that at Fostat (Old Cairo), in 336 A.H., there fell into his hands a chronicle (now lost) by Godmer, bishop of Gironne, which he uses for his narrative. 4 Of these the first chapter gives an interesting catalogue.