FOSSIL EHINOCEEOS OF TIBET. 177 



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Judging from the quantities wliicli find their way to 

 Almorah, the fossils are by no means scarce. They are rarely 

 seen entire, consisting- generally of fragments three to six 

 inches long ; sometimes the contents of a collection are no- 

 thing but bits of bone hardly an inch long. They usually 

 present a clean and sharp or splintery fracture, wearing the 

 ajppearance of having been fragmented after the mineraliza- 

 tion was complete. They vary greatly in the amount of 

 fossilization, and, consequently, in specific gravity. The 

 infiltrated mineral in most cases is carbonate of lime. The 

 specimens adhere more or less to the tongue. Li some of 

 them the cancellated tissue has the cells entirely filled with 

 the infiltrated mineral; in others the cells are empty. It 

 is rare to see any tinge of iron about them, a character so 

 prevalent in the Sewalik fossils of the arenaceous beds. 

 One class of them has very much the appearance of bleached 

 bones, with the fracture also white; their fossil character 

 resting on a core of crystallized carbonate of hme and the 

 increased specific gravity. In another class the specimens 

 yield a dark blue fracture, and weather with very much of 

 the greyish white leprous appearances which chalk fluids 

 exhibit. They effervesce strongly with nitric acid, and 

 treated with a weak solution of it, the greater portion of 

 them dissolves ; they retain few or no traces of animal matter. 



Our materials for the elucidation of the species are but scanty. 

 They are : first, a set of specimens in Captain Cautley's col- 

 lection at Suharunpoor, received from Captain Corbet of 

 Almorah; second, specimens received from Mr. Batten of 

 Kumaon; third, specimens procured from a Bhoteah mer- 

 chant, said to have been collected by himself on the Hioondes; 

 fourth, PI. III. of Eoyle's ' Illustrations,' which contains some 

 figures of fossil bones procured from the northern face of the 

 Himalayahs by Captain Webb and Mr. Traill. 



Rhinoceros Remains.^ — These are, fortunately, very decisive. 

 Fig. 3, PI. III. of Eoyle's ' Illustrations,' represents the greater 

 portion of a tooth evidently derived from a Ehinoceros, and 

 probably the fifth or sixth molar left side of the upper jaw ; 

 but this is a point not to be determined by the figure, and we 

 have not yet had access to the letter-press relating to it. 



The next specimen is a fragment in Captain Cautley's col- 

 lection, consisting of the left half of the body, with nearly 

 the entire ala of the atlas or first cervical vertebra of a 

 Ehinoceros. The upper and lower articulating surfaces are 

 complete, and the bone is so characteristic as to leave no 

 doubt about its identification. There is one remarkable cir- 

 ciunstance about it, viz. that there is no hole for the passage 



' See Plate xv., figs. 3 to 11.— [Ed.] 

 VOL. I. N 



