LARGE FOSSIL HIPPOPOTAMUS. 407 
found under precisely the same circumstances, not mine- 
ralized, but simply in the state of grave-bones imbedded 
in loam, or clay, or gravel, over great part of northern 
Kurope, as well as North America and Siberia.” * 
Fossil remains of Hippopotamus have been found in 
some abundance, and in a more perfect state than those 
in the fluviatile deposits of the valleys of the Thames 
and Avon, in the formations of clay and sand with lignite 
beds, also of fresh-water origin, that overlie the Norwich 
crag upon the eastern coast of Norfoll.+ 
The fine example of the ramus or half of the lower jaw 
of the Hippopotamus major, represented in figures 159 and 
162, was obtained from this pliocene formation near 
Cromer. It forms part of the rare and instructive series 
of fossils which Miss Anna Gurney, in the exercise of a 
beneficence which is combined in her noble character with 
an enlightened appreciation of whatever tends to promote 
science, has caused to be rescued from the destructive 
operations to which the sea-coast in the vicinity of her 
residence is peculiarly exposed. The fishermen and other 
poor inhabitants of the coast have been encouraged by 
her judicious bounty to collect and preserve the specimens 
that, by the action of high and stormy tides, become 
detached from the cliffs ; and the evidences of the ancient 
beings of this island thus saved from destruction, have 
proved of essential service in the present attempt to record 
the extinet species of British Mammalia. 
The half-jaw, of which the side-view is given in fig. 
159, measures two feet in length, and one foot one inch 
and a half from the summit of the coronoid process, p, 
* ¢ Reliquiee Diluviane,’ p. 42. 
+ See Mr. Lyell’s Memoir on the Geology of this coast in the ‘ Philosophical 
Magazine’ for May, 1840. 
