Curiosities of Science. 135 



It is curious to observe, that the mammoth teeth which are 

 met with in caves generally belonged to young mammoths, who 

 probably resorted thither for shelter before increasing age and 

 strength emboldened them to wander far afield. 



THE RHINOCEROS AND HIPPOPOTAMUS OF ENGLAND. 



The mammoth was not the only giant that inhabited Eng- 

 land in the Pliocene or Upper Tertiary period. We had also 

 here the Rhinoceros tichorrhinus, or "strongly walled about the 

 nose," remains of which have been discovered in enormous 

 quantities in the brickfields about London. Pallas describes 

 an entire specimen of this creature, which was found near 

 Yakutsk, the coldest town on the globe. Another rhinoceros, 

 leptorrhinus (fine nose), dwelt with the elephant of Southern 

 Europe. In Siberia has been discovered the Elaimotherium, 

 forming a link between the rhinoceros and the horse. 



In the days of the mammoth, we had also in England a 

 Hippopotamus, rather larger than the species which now in- 

 habits the Nile. Of our British hippopotamus some remains 

 were dug up by the workmen in preparing the foundations of 

 the New Junior United Service Club-house, in Regent-street. 



THE ELEPHANT AND TORTOISE. 



The idea of an Elephant standing on the back of a Tortoise 

 was often laughed at as an absurdity, until Captain Cautley 

 and Dr. Falconer at length discovered in the hills of Asia the 

 remains of a tortoise in a fossil state of such a size that an 

 elephant could easily have performed the above feat. 



COEXISTENCE OF MAN AND THE MASTODON. 



Dr. C. F. Winslow has communicated to the Boston Society 

 of Natural History the discovery of the fragment of a human 

 cranium 180 feet below the surface of the Table Mountain, 

 California. Now the mastodon's bones being found in the 

 same deposits, points very clearly to the probability of the ap- 

 peaiance of the human race on the western portions of North 

 America at least before the extinction of those huge creatures. 

 Fragments of mastodon and Elephas primigenius have been 

 taken ten and twenty feet below the surface in the above lo- 

 cality ; where this discovery of human and mastodon remains 

 gives strength to the possible truth of an old Indian tradition, 

 the contemporary existence of the mammoth and aboriginals 

 in this region of the globe. 



HABITS OF THE MEGATHERIUM. 



Much uncertainty has been felt about the habits of the Me- 

 gatherium, or Great Beast. It has been asked whether it bur- 



