FOSSILS PKOM PERIM ISLAND. 



395 



communication, dated 17th April, 1836, by Baron Carl von 

 Hiigel,' in which he mentions their having been discovered 

 by Dr. Lush. Among the remains which he enumerates are 

 bones of the Mastodon latidens, the core of the horn of a 

 species of Bos, the head of a boar, and a rodent. Captain 

 Fulljames concedes the priority of discovery to Dr. Lush ; 

 but immediately after foUowed up the inquiry by more ex- 

 tended researches, commencing in April of the same year ; 

 and it is to him that we are indebted for the greater part of 

 the Perim fossils, which are to be found in the Museums of 

 the Asiatic Societies of Calcutta and Bombay, and of the 

 Geological Society of London. Among those which he first 

 met with he mentions ' teeth of Mammoth, Mastodon, Pala^o- 

 therium. Hippopotamus, Rhinoceros, and a number of other 

 smaller animals ; elephant's tusks ; the head of some large 

 saurian animal ; tortoise ; one half of a deer's foot ; and a 

 shell in sUiceous sandstone.' In the collection which Captain 

 Fulljames sent to the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, Mr. James 

 Prinsep ^ enumerates ' many jaws of the Mastodon in fine 

 preservation; also teeth or jaws of the Hippopotamus, 

 Elephant, Rhinoceros, a large animal assimilating thereto 

 {Lophiodon ?), 8us, Anthracotherium {?), Deer, Ox, many ver- 

 tebrae and unidentified bones and horns ; Tortoise fragments, 

 and a peculiarly perfect saurian head.'^ These identifica- 

 tions are not to be considered, in several of the instances, as 

 more than approximative ; for neither of these gentlemen 

 profess to be familiar with the subject of fossil bones. 



No further account of these remains has appeared in any 

 of the Indian journals since that time. In 1840 Captain 

 ruUjames sent his donation to the Geological Society, and 

 about the same time some specimens from the same locality 

 were presented by Miss Pepper to the British Museum. 



Judging from the matrix which adheres to them, the 

 Perim fossils seem fco be embedded, in most cases, in a calcareo- 

 ferruginous conglomerate, composed of nodules of indurated 

 yellow clay, cemented together by a paste of sand and clay. 

 Some of them are attached to patches of a hard argillaceous 

 sandstone. Many of them have had the matrix washed off 

 by the action of the sea, and are in this case generally covered 

 over with the remains of small species of Serpula and other 

 recent marine shells. The mineral character of the bones shows 

 that they are penetrated with siliceous infiltration, like a 

 gTcat portion of the Sewalik fossils ; and in consequence they 

 present a great degree of hardness. The same character 



' Jour. Asiat. Soe. of Beng., vol. v. 

 p. 288. (May 1836.) 

 ^ Loc. citat., vol. v. p. 290. 



' Jour. Asiat. Soe. of Beng., v. vi. p. 78. 

 (Jan. 1837.) 



