42 Reports and Proceedings — 



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The Geological Society of London. — I. — November 6, 1878. — 

 Henry Clifton Sorby, Esq., F.K.S., President, in the Cbair. 

 The following communications were read : — 



1. " On the Range of the Mammoth in Space and Time." By 

 Prof. W. Boyd Dawkins, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S. 



The author expressed his opinion that the result of the evidence 

 collected since the death of Dr. Falconer has been to establish the 

 view of that palaeontologist as to the Mammoth having appeared in 

 Britain before the Glacial epoch. The evidence as to the occurrence 

 of the Mammoth in the south of England was first examined. The 

 remains found beneath the bed of erratics near Pagham belonged, 

 not to Elephas primigenius, but to E. antiquus. But in 1858 re- 

 mains belonging to the former were found by Prof. Prestwich under 

 Boulder-clay in Hertfordshire. In Scotland remains of E. primi- 

 genius have been found under Boulder-clay ; but whether under the 

 oldest Boulder-clay is uncertain. In 1878 a portion of a molar was 

 brought up from a depth of 65 feet near Northwich. It was in a 

 sand beneath Boulder-clay, which the author considered to be un- 

 doubtedly the older Boulder-clay. The author now assents to Dr. 

 Falconer's opinion (which he formerly doubted) that E. primigenius 

 was a member of the Cromer Forest-bed fauna. It is also clear 

 that it was living in the southern and central parts of England in 

 Postglacial times. It has not been found north of Yorkshire on the 

 east, and Holyhead on the west, probably because Scotland and 

 North-west England were long occupied by glaciers. Its remains 

 have been found on the continent as far south as Naples and as far 

 north as Hamburgh, but not in Scandinavia. Its remains, as is well 

 known, abound in Siberia, and it ranged over North America from 

 Eschscholtz Bay to the Isthmus of Darien, E. columbi, E. americanus, 

 and E. Jacksoni being only varieties. The author then discussed 

 the relations of E. primigenius to E. columbi, E. armeniacus, and E. 

 Indicus, and came to the conclusion that it is the ancestor of the last. 



2. " The Mammoth in Siberia." By H. H. Howorth, Esq., F.S. A. 

 Communicated by J. Evans, Esq., LL.D., F.B.S., V.P.G.S. 



The author gave reasons for considering that the " griffon's claw " 

 sent by Harun-al-Eashed to Charlemagne was the horn of a fossil 

 Rhinoceros, so that the extinct mammals coeval with the Mammoth 

 were known in Europe at an early date. They were probably 

 known even in the days of Heredotus. Other evidence, such as the 

 Christy Collection, shows that the Siberian deposits were known at 

 a very early time. There is evidence, too, to show that fossil ivory 

 was known to the Chinese, who asserted that the animals were still 

 living underground. The author described several cases of the dis- 

 covery of well-preserved bodies of Mammoths in historic times. 

 The}' have occurred in widely separated places, from the eastern 

 watershed of the Obi to the peninsula of the Tschuksi. Bones also 

 have been found over the whole length of Siberia, the Brai Islands, 

 and the islands of New Siberia. 



