GEOLOGICAL AGE OF MAST. ARVERNENSIS. 51 



enumerates in the list of the fossils of the Pliocene Fluvio- 

 marine Crag the following genera and species, viz. Mastodon 

 angustidens, Elephas primigenius, Rhinoceros tichorhinus, 

 Equus fossilis, Gervus elaphus, Arvicola, and Lutra. But, influ- 

 enced probably by the opinion at which he had arrived, that 

 the Crag Mastodon was identical with the M. angustidens of 

 Cuvier and M. longirostris of Kaup, he adds in a note, that all 

 the other species, except Mastodon, were probably derived 

 from the overlying blue clay. 1 The contemporaneous asso- 

 ciation of these species is unquestionably in the highest 

 degree improbable, as it would include a Miocene Mastodon 

 along with a Post- Pliocene Elephant and Rhinoceros, and 

 the existing Red Deer, in the same fauna. But it admits of 

 no doubt that species of the genera above enumerated have 

 been found in the Fluvio -marine Crag, and it is of import- 

 ance to ascertain what these species really are. I carefully 

 examined the Elephant molars from the Crag, blue clay, or 

 submerged forest-bed, contained in the different collections 

 at Norwich, and arrived at the conclusion that none of them 

 belonged to E. primigenius, the Mammoth of Siberia, properly 

 so called ; but to two distinct species, the one, E. (Loxodon) 

 meridiotialis, which occurs in vast abundance in the Val 

 d'Arno ; and the other, E. (Euelephas) antiquus, which is 

 found in the plains of the Astesan, in Piedmont, in various 

 other parts of Europe, and in the so-called ' Newer Pliocene ' 

 freshwater deposits and caves of England. The evidence 

 upon which these species are founded will be considered in 

 the sequel. The occurrence of the Siberian Rhinoceros 

 tichorhinus {Rhin. antiguitatis of Blumenbach) in the Crag 

 would seem exceedingly improbable; for, elsewhere, it has 

 invariably been met with in company with the Mammoth, in 

 the northern fauna of the Glacial Drift period, and nowhere 

 as yet, upon undoubted evidence, in Pliocene formations. 

 Professor Owen (Brit. Foss. Mamm. p. 381) states, that 'Mr. 

 Fitch of Norwich possesses specimens of upper and lower 

 molar teeth of the Rh. leptorhinus from the freshwater (lignite) 

 beds on the Norfolk coast near Cromer, which demonstrate 

 the occurrence of this species in the same deposit with the 

 Rh. tichorhinus.^ The contemporaneous association of the 

 two species in these beds would seem as improbable as the 

 occurrence of Rh. tichorhinus in the Crag, and the explanation 

 may be sought for in an adventitious mixing of the speci- 

 mens. 2 The evidence adduced in support of the existing 



1 Op. cit. p. xlvi. 



2 Mr. Charlesworth, in remarking that 

 the bones of Elephants and other quad- 

 rupeds are more frequently associated 



E 2 



with the shells of the Crag in Norfolk, 

 adds that, ' in that county the formation 

 in many places exhibits such irregulari- 

 ties, and is sometimes so mingled with 



