49 



average yearly temperature probably assimilated to our 

 own, with winters, however, of unusual severity, exhibiting 

 the action of ice in the peculiar formation of the boulders 

 of the gravels and river beds. Mr. Dawkins contended 

 strongly for a glacial temperature, and instanced as amongst 

 the fauna inhabiting these latitudes, the reindeer and 

 musk ox, creatures of an Arctic climate —the marmot, 

 the lemur, and the beaver. Mr. Sandford met or enda- 

 voured to meet this argument by instancing the fact of the 

 existence of the hippopotamus, an animal unable to exist in 

 a climate where the rivers would be frozen into a solid 

 block nine months in the year, strongly arguing also that 

 the vegetation of this period closely resembled that of the 

 present day, and that the rhinoceros had been found fos- 

 silized amongst remains of trees, similar species of which 

 were now growing above the surface ; and that in the jaws 

 and stomach of a fossil bat had been detected undigested 

 vegetable food identical with the flora of the present climate 

 of England and middle Europe. A gigantic bear had also 

 been discovered at Taunton ; the horse shoe bat, and a 

 bison resembling the Aurock, though larger. The Mendip 

 Hills of the district were said to contain the largest collec- 

 tion of fossil-bones in the world. Allusion was made to the 

 all-important question of the antiquity of man, and the ex- 

 traordinary discovery, if authentic, made by Dr. Falconer, 

 of the remnant of ivory found in the Dardogne cave, exhi- 

 biting a rude drawing of a mammoth in the act of charging 

 — found with the bones of the animal itself, and drawa 

 by some hand, that had skill and cunning enough to design 

 it on the spot, and perhaps to perish with the portrait it 

 ]iad taken, one of the oldest if not earliest designed of pic- 

 tures ! Other papers followed —a chapter from his unpub- 

 lished " Ilistory of England," by Mr. Freeman, giving aa 

 animated and graphic account of the battle of Hastings, and 

 death of " Harold, King of the English." Visits were 

 made the second day by the Society, through many of the 



