LABGE 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 

 Europe, 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 Norfolk.-f 



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 extinct 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, />, 



* ' Reliquiae Diluvianse,' p. 42. 



t See Mr. LyelTs Memoir on the Geology of this coast in the ' Philosophical 

 Magazine' for May, 1840. 



