54 FAUNA ANTIQUA SIVALEXSIS. 



tlie distinctness of tlie Tuscan species, for whicli lie proposes 

 the specific name of E. meridionalis. 



The value of the evidence regarding this species v^ill be 

 more fully considered in the sequel. Nesti's opinion, hovr- 

 ever, has met with little favour among palaeontologists. 

 Croizet and Jobert have adoj)ted it for some of the elephant 

 remains found in Auvergne,' and the name finds a place in the 

 enumeration of sj)ecies given in von Meyer's 'Palgeologica.'^ 

 But it is not admitted by Bronn,' De Blainville,"* or Pictet ; ^ 

 and it vrould appear from certain passages in the ' British 

 Possil Mammalia' that the great v^eight of Professor Owen's 

 authority is against it.'' 



In 1821 Dr. Goldfuss" described a fossil grinder found in 

 a collection at Cologne, which resembles very much that of 

 the African elephant, in the characteristic peculiarities of the 

 rhomboid form and reduced number of the grinding plates. 

 He states that the specimen, although the precise locality 

 was unknown, has the cement and ivory as much decomposed 

 as in the fossil grinders from Siberia. In a second memoir* 

 he figures and describes other teeth presenting the same 

 characters, from the banks of the Riihr, in Westphalia, and 

 concludes from them that the valley of the Ehine had formerly 

 an elephant, which was more closely allied to the African 

 than the mammoth was to the existmg Indian species. He 

 proj)Osed naming it provisionally Elejilias priscus. 



Cuvier threw very strong doubts upon the authenticity of 

 these specimens as veritable fossils, in consequence of the 

 ambiguous circumstances under which they were found. He 

 considered them to be nothino: more than diso-uised remains 

 of African elephants of modern origin." But according to 

 Bronn, fossil teeth of the same description have since been 

 found, under circumstances fully to be depended upon, 

 throughout nearly the whole of Central Europe, from the 

 Rhine to the heart of Russia,'" Some of thera have been 

 described byWagner;" and undoubted fossil teeth, presenting 

 similar characters, have been met with in the ' brick earth ' 

 beds of the valley of the Thames, at a considerable depth 

 below the surface. These will be noticed afterwards in con- 

 nection with the dental series of one of the Indian fossil 

 species. 



' Croizet et Joliert, Oss. Foss. du Puy- 

 de-D6me, 1828, p. 123. 



2 Von Meyer, Palceologica, 1832, p. 69. 



' Bronn, Letlisea Geoguostica, 1838, 

 p. 1245. 



■' De Blainville, Osteographie ; Ele- 

 phants, p. 220. 



* Pictet, Palseontologie, 1844, torn. i. 

 p. 243. 



" Owen, Brit. Poss. Mamm. p. 239. 



' Goldfuss, Nov. Act. Acad. Leop. 

 Carol. Natur. Curios, vol. x. p. 485. 



** Idem, loc. cit. vol. xi. p. 485. 



° Cuvier, Oss. Possiles, torn. ii. (Svo. 

 edit.) p. 184. 



'» Bronn, Letlisea Geog., p. 1244. 



11 AVagner, Karsten's Archiv. xri. 

 p. 21. 



