GEOLOGY. 313 



mastodon on this continent, on the evidence of a tooth in the posses- 

 sion of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, the history of 

 which he laboriously traced, has decided that this species was a native 

 of North America. The locality of the tooth referred to is a few 

 miles from Baltimore, but its authenticity has been somewhat ques- 

 tioned by some geologists. At the meeting of the American Associ- 

 ation at Charleston, Prof. R. W. Gibbes stated, that he had recently 

 procured a fragment of a tooth of the M. angustidens, found amid a 

 heap of rubbish used in filling up an old wharf in Baltimore. If it was 

 derived, as is not improbable, from the neighbourhood, it would seem to 

 confirm the conclusions previously arrived at by Dr. Warren. 



At the American Association, at Cambridge, in 1849, Prof. Agas- 

 siz exhibited the teeth and tusks of a new species of Elephas found in 

 Vermont.* Prof. Gibbes stated, that, since this discovery, a tooth of 

 the same species had been found in Duplin Co., N. C. It is therefore 

 settled that this species also occurs in the Southern States. 



FOSSIL REMAINS OF THE BIRDS OF NEW ZEALAND. 



A SPLENDID collection of the fossil remains of the Dinornis, and other 

 birds of New Zealand, has recently been transmitted to England by 

 Walter Mantell, Esq., Government Commissioner of those islands. 

 This collection contains above five hundred specimens referable to va- 

 rious species of Dinornis and allied genera ; and to species of albatross, 

 penguin, water-hen, and apteryx, with portions of egg-shells of three 

 different types. With the above were also associated bones of a spe- 

 cies of dog and two species of seal. Some of these bones were im- 

 bedded in a morass, which is of small extent and only exposed at low 

 water. This swamp was composed of vegetable fibres, sand, and ani- 

 mal matter ; and seems to have been originally a morass in which the 

 New Zealand flax grew luxuriantly. The bones are literally tanned, 

 and so well preserved as to appear as fresh as if recent. Among the 

 specimens are crania and mandibles, and bones of the most colossal 

 size. The most extraordinary relics are the entire series of bones 

 (twenty-six in number) of the feet and shanks of the same individual, 

 Dinornis robustus, found standing erect, the one about a yard in ad- 

 vance of the other, as if the bird had been mired, and, being unable to 

 extricate itself, had perished on the spot. They were dug up and care- 

 fully numbered seriatim, and are now articulated like a recent skele- 

 ton. This is the only known instance of the bones of the foot and 

 tarsus in a natural condition, and consequently the first certain example 

 of the structure of the bones of the feet of the colossal birds of New 

 Zealand. There are no clear indications of this bird having had a hin- 

 der toe, as in the smaller species of Palapteryx, in which the articula- 

 tion for a posterior toe is strongly marked. The foot when recent 

 must have been sixteen inches long and eighteen inches wide ; the 

 height of the bird to which the bones belonged was about ten feet. 



O 



Dr. Mantell suggests that these bone deposits, though geologically 



* Sea Annual of Scientific Discovery, 1350, p. 2S6. 

 27 



