PALAEONTOLOGY 



VERTEBRATE remains are very scarce in Cornwall, this being 

 no doubt due to the nature of the rocks of the county. Among 

 mammals remains of the red deer (Census elaphus] are recorded 

 from the superficial deposits of St. Columb, and those of the 

 reindeer (Rangifer tarandus] , the wild horse (Equus cabal/us fossitis), the 

 mammoth (Elephas primigenius) , and the great cave-lion (Fells /eospe/aea), 

 from Otterham. 



Of far greater interest than any of the foregoing are, however, certain 

 bones of a whalebone whale from a superficial formation at Petuan in the 

 parish of St. Austell, which are preserved in the museum at Penzance 

 and have been described by the late Sir William Flower in the Annals 

 and Magazine of Natural History for 1872 (ser. 4, vol. ix, p. 440), and in 

 the Transactions of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall for 1 875 (vol. ix, 

 p. 117) under the name of Eschrichtius robustus. They were dug up some 

 time prior to the year 1829, at a distance of about half a mile from the 

 shore at a depth of some twenty feet below the surface in a bed of river- 

 silt and gravel. By Sir William Flower they were identified with a species 

 previously known by a subfossil skeleton from the Swedish Island of Graso 

 in the Baltic, which had been named Balaenoptera robusta by Professor 

 Lilljeborg,but which Dr. J. E. Gray made thetypeof the genus Eschrichtius. 

 That skeleton was found in a deposit of partly clay and partly sand at a 

 depth of between two and four feet below the surface, and from ten to 

 fifteen feet above the present level, and at a distance of over 800 ft. from 

 the shore. 



That these two skeletons indicate a whale generically distinct from 

 any now inhabiting the Atlantic and adjacent seas is quite certain ; and 

 the only question is whether the Pacific grey whale, described subsequently 

 as Rhachianectes g/aucus, is not the same. It is scarcely likely that a species 

 which lived at such a comparatively recent epoch as the one indicated by 

 the deposits in which the two skeletons were found should have become 

 totally extinct. 



Between the foregoing scanty list of mammals from formations of 

 Pleistocene or later age, no vertebrate (or perhaps we should rather say 

 chordate) remains appear to be known from the county till we reach the 

 Lower Devonian, from which formation at Polperro, Fowey, and Lani- 

 vet Bay have been obtained numerous specimens of the bony shields of 

 armoured fish-like creatures constituting the Palaeozoic family Pteraspididae. 

 Originally these interesting fossils were described by the late Sir F. M'Coy * 

 as sponges, and named Steganodictyum cornubicum; but their fish-like nature 



1 Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (2) viii, 481 (1851). 



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