MENDIP BOXE CAVERNS. 31 



that these animals were the living inhabitants of the land, 

 it is necessary we should turn our attention to the locali- 

 ties in which their remains have been found, and tbe cir- 

 cumstances under which they were discovered. In the 

 year 1853 the head and a large number of the bones of 

 the skeleton of a young rhinoceros were found in the 

 alluvial deposit excavated on the site of a portion of the 

 present Taunton Gaol. The surrounding debris was evi- 

 dently washed down from the Blagdon Hills, over the red 

 marl of the Taunton Dean: the fragnients of flint and 

 chert mixed up with the raarly earth are clear indications 

 of its source. Below the Stratum of alluvial deposit in 

 which the skeleton ot the rhinoceros lay, a large quantity 

 of timber trees were found, which were probably washed 

 down from the hüls or uprooted in the piain of Taunton 

 Dean, about the same time that the dead body of the 

 rhinoceros was drifted to the spot where its remains were 

 found. These trees lay scattered about in confusion and 

 belonged chiefly to the oak species. Alder likewise occur, 

 and in a bed of leaf-mold, in which the leaves wonderfully 

 retain their characteristic form, a large cpiantity of hazel 

 nuts were found. So firm and sound is the timber dis- 

 covered herc, that tables and chairs have been raanu- 

 factured from it. The head of this animal deposited in 

 the Museum, is so perfect, with the teeth in their sockets, 

 that there can be no doubt of the species to which it 

 belonged. Professor Quekett has pronounced it to be a 

 young specimen of the Rhinoceros tichorinus. 



On the other side of the Quantocks the teeth of the 

 Mammoth Elephant have been found, of which beautiful 

 spccimcns were deposited in the Museum, by the late Mr. 

 Wm, Baker. Some yeai's ago I likewise remember to 

 have . seen at Merriott fossil clephants' teeth, which were 



