Correspondence — Rev. 0. Fisher. 621 



lectures. I think, for instance, that if Professors Darwin, 

 Osborne-Eeynolds, and Fleming, with Dr. Vaughan Cornish and 

 Mrs. S. Ayrton, were to confer and compare experiences a unanimous 

 report might easily be arrived at. Until something of the sort is 

 done the exposition of the subject, as endorsed and supported by 

 the Eoyal Society and the British Association in their corporate 

 capacities, will either be accepted by the public or cause a great 

 deal of perplexity. The question does not touch my own special 

 work, as all seem agreed as to the ripple-making powers of reciprocal 

 wave-currents. A. R. Hunt. 



November 1th, 1904. 



ELEPHAS MERIBIONALIS AT DEWLISH. 



Sir, — I regret that I was unable to be present at the meeting 

 of the Geological Society on the 9th inst., when my paper on 

 the Dewlish elophant trench was read, suggesting human agency. 

 I crave your permission to reply to one or two criticisms as reported 

 in the Abstracts of the Proceedings. It is there said that some 

 * eoliths ' found there were exhibited by me. If what I did exhibit 

 is referred to, they were merely shown as geological specimens from 

 the drift of the gravel with which the trench had eventually become 

 filled — not as ' eoliths.' I have seen some ' eoliths ' which were 

 collected at Dewlish, but in my opinion (whatever that may be 

 worth) they do not strengthen my hypothesis that the trench is 

 artificial. 



Mr. Hudleston remarked that he understood that the remains 

 of only one elephant had been found. There are in existence 

 nine well-preserved molars in museums, four at Dorchester, two 

 at Salisbury, two at Cambridge, and one at Manchester. I exhibited 

 at Cambridge all these except the Salisbury specimens. Mr. Pleydell 

 in his paper in the " Dorset Field Club," 1889, mentions seven 

 molars, so that two of the above enumerated must have been 

 omitted in his list. In this paper he gives a list of remains. 

 He says that isolated plates of other molars were scattered in 

 various parts of the deposit, and that in some places fragments 

 of ivory were so numerous as to predominate over other materials. 

 This I think disposes of Mr. Hudleston's objection that the remains 

 of only one elephant had been found. 



It is obvious that the trench was not wide enough to contain 

 the carcase of an elephant. But if such a beast once got his fore 

 legs into a narrow trench twelve feet deep, he must have been 

 in the " helpless condition " that Sir Samuel Baker refers to, in 

 which he might have been dispatched at leisure. It is not likely 

 that primitive men would have expended more labour upon their 

 pitfall than was absolutely necessary. 0. Fisher. 



Haklton, Cambridge, 



November ISth, 1904. 



