A HISTORY OF SURREY 



remains as compared with those of the adjacent counties. But the 

 British Museum possesses teeth of the shark Lamna macrota from the 

 Lower Eocene of Woking and Sydenham, as also some of Carcharodon 

 auriculatus from the same deposits at Woking. The chimasroid Edapho- 

 don leptognathus is likewise represented in the national collection by a 

 tooth from the Thanet Sand near Croydon. From the London Clay 

 of Dulwich has been obtained an imperfect femur of the typical Cory- 

 phodon eoccenus. , 



From a paper by Mr. C. Rickman, of which only an abstract 

 was published in the Quarterly "Journal of the Geological Society? it 

 appears that during the excavations in 1859 at Peckham in connection 

 with the main drainage of the metropolis, a considerable number of 

 vertebrate remains were discovered in the Woolwich and Reading beds 

 of that district. These, which seem never to have been described, are 

 stated to have included mammalian and chelonian bones, scutes of croco- 

 diles, and scales of fishes. 



The Pleistocene gravels and other superficial deposits along the course 

 of the Mole as well as those of the Thames valley at Peckham, Camber- 

 well, Kennington, Kew, Battersea and elsewhere, have yielded remains 

 of some of the mammals usually met with in similar deposits. It will 

 suffice to refer to certain of these remains preserved in the collection of 

 the British Museum. Of the mammoth (Elephas primigenius) there are 

 molar teeth from Dorking, Peckham and Lower Tooting ; while there 

 are also molars of the straight-tusked elephant (E. antiquus) from Peck- 

 ham, one of which was described by the late Professor Leith Adams in 

 his monograph of the British fossil elephants. The woolly rhinoceros 

 (Rhinoceros antiquitatis) is represented in the national collection by molars 

 and bones from Peckham, the former being referred to by Professor 

 W. B. Dawkins 2 in a memoir on the dentition of that species ; there 

 are likewise molars from the same locality of the species commonly 

 known as R. leptorhinus^ one of which is figured by Professor Dawkins. 3 

 The collection also includes several tusks of the Pleistocene hippopo- 

 tamus (Hippopotamus amphiblus major] from Peckham, which are remark- 

 able for their unusually large size. All the foregoing remains are 

 mentioned by Professor Dawkins in the passage cited, where it is stated 

 that while those of the hippopotamus and Rhinoceros leptorhinus were 

 obtained from a bed of clay, the fine associated series of molars of the 

 woolly rhinoceros came from a subjacent peaty layer. They were dug 

 out during the excavation of the sewer in Rye Lane in 1862. 



From the same clay-bed were likewise disinterred certain limb-bones 

 apparently referable to the aurochs or wild ox (Bos taurus primigenius}. 

 The British Museum also possesses an imperfect skull of the Pleistocene 

 bison (Bos priscus) from Peckham. In addition to this the collection 

 contains an imperfect skull of the domesticated breed of ox commonly 

 known as the Celtic short-horn which was dug up at Lambeth, near 



1 Vol. xvii. p. 6 (1860). quart. Journ. Geol. See., vol. xxiii. p. 226 (1867). 



3 Ibid. pi. x. fig. 5. 



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