40 On the Fossil Remains of Elephants, 



a cluster of tubercular projections, like the smaller tubercles 

 on the tooth of the mastodon, I became very uncertain res- 

 pecting the animal to which the tooth in the Norwich Museum 

 really belonged. In the collection of Miss Johnson of Nor- 

 wich there is a fragment of an elephant's grinder, which bears 

 as close a resemblance to that of the mastodon as the specimen 

 in the Museum, and yet there can be no doubt of its belonging 

 to the elephant, as similar tubercles may be seen in other 

 teeth, in which the greater part of the laminae present the 

 true elephantine character of parallel laminae. Mr. Wood- 

 ward has a fragment of the same tooth as that in the museum, 

 but it is too small to determine its character. The question 

 might perhaps be determined by an examination of the in- 

 ternal structure. The tooth of the supposed mastodon, des- 

 cribed by Mr. William Smith, I have never seen. There 

 can indeed be no reason alleged, why the remains of the 

 mastodon may not be found in England, as they have been 

 found in several countries in Europe. I have in my collection 

 a large well-characterised grinder of the mastodon, which was 

 found near Grenoble, along with teeth and bones of the gi- 

 gantic tapir and the rhinoceros. A large and perfect grinder 

 of the mastodon was found at Alpnach in Switzerland, under 

 300 ft. of solid strata of limestone and sandstone. I saw it in 

 the museum of Professor Meisner of Berne, who presented 

 me with specimens of the strata, and a correct drawing of the 

 tooth, which is copied in the fourth edition of my Introduction 

 to Geology, and which distinctly shows the small tubercles at 

 the end, precisely similar to the tubercles on some of the 

 grinders of the fossil elephants of Norfolk. 



The number of the mammalian remains lately discovered 

 on or near the coast between Cromer and Hapsborough, a 

 distance of about twelve miles, cannot now be ascertained. 

 Mr. Woodward in his Outline of the Geology of Norfolk, pub- 

 lished in 1833, says, " that the grinders found on the oyster- 

 ground of Hapsborough, warrant us in concluding that up- 

 wards of five hundred elephants were deposited in that limited 

 space." These fossil remains also occur imbedded in a thin 

 stratum of blue clay, covered by a stratum of gravel, near the 

 bottom of the Cliffs at Cromer, and extending thence to 

 the sea, where the chalk on which these beds rest may be 

 traced during very low tides, ranging along the coast. As 

 the Cliffs of Cromer are chiefly composed of sand and of clay, 

 which has little tenacity, they are annually falling down and 

 receding, and the elephant stratum becomes more and more 

 exposed. Beside these localities, in which the remains are 

 embedded, the action of the tides is constantly throwing bones 

 and grinders among th*»> shingles and on the sand, where 



