404 



FOSSILS FKOM PEEIM ISLAND. 



ranged, whose bones are now found so abundantly scattered 

 over India.' * Unfortunately, this excellent observer's re- 

 searches on the Gulf of Cambay have never been published ; 

 but in a note appended to the paper quoted above he men- 

 tions the occurrence of trap pebbles in the tertiary sandstones 

 of Perim Island and Kattiwar (see antea, p. 394), and in the 

 cornelian conglomerates of Rajpeepla and Broach, which are 

 said to be remarkably altered by the intrusion of igneous rocks 

 of a late date. 



Supplementary Observations.- — Since the preceding remarks 

 were in type I have had occasion to examine some other 

 Perim Island fossils presented to the British Museiim by Miss 

 Pepper, one of which has furnished additional and most un- 

 equivocal evidence of a huge Indian species of Duiotherium. 

 The specimen is a superb fragment of the left half of the lower 

 jaw, containing nearly the whole of the adult series of five 

 molars in situ.^ The contour of the body of the jaw is shown 

 in the most perfect state of preservation, the fossil havmg 

 fortunately been mineralized by means of a very hard siliceo- 

 ferruginous infiltration. But it has evidently been long 

 rolled about on the sea-beach as a boulder, so that the crowns 

 of the whole series of molars have been hammered off neai'ly 

 level with the alveolar margin of the jaw ; the surface of the 

 fossil is jet black, and almost aU of the matrix has been 

 cleared away, probably by the long-continued action of the 

 sea, which has given it a semi-vitreous polish. That it had 

 latterly been in the sea is distinctly proved by adherent 

 patches of recent marine shells identical with those found on 

 others of the Perim fossils ; and the testaceous remains being 

 white, pearly, and fresh-looking, are seen in marked relief 

 upon the black surface of the fossil. The symphysis of the 

 jaw is broken off about 2^ inches in front of the anterior 

 premolar, and the bone is truncated behind exactly opposite 

 the point where the coronoid margin of the ramus begins to 

 rise up, the fractiu^e passing through the middle of the last 

 molar, the anterior ridge of which is visible in situ in the jaw. 



The dimensions given below will indicate most distinctly 

 the characters by which this fossil differs from the jaw of the 

 D. giganteum of Kaup. In relative length, the two agree 

 very closely, the four anterior molars measuring but half an 

 inch more in the Indian than in the European species. But 

 the other proportions are very different. The depth of the 

 jaw measured to the alveolar margin of the second premolar, 

 where the deflexion of the symphysis begins ahke in both, is 



' Malcolmson, Journal Bombay Geo- 

 graphical Society, vol. for 1841-18-i4, 

 p. 371. 



^ See Plate xxxiii. fig. 5, copied 

 from Fauna Antiq. Siy., Plate xxx^'. 



figs. 6 and 6 a.— [Ed.] 



