66 BRITISH AND EUROPEAN FOSSIL MASTODONS. 



2. A thin calcareous layer, compact, made up of shell-fragments, 6 

 inches thick, passing into — 



3. A soft grey and white limestone, of oolitic structure, with casts of 

 shells ; 5 inches thick. 



4. Soft yellowish-grey sand, here and there brownish-red, with oxide 

 of iron, harder beneath, without fossils ; 8 inches. 



5. Harder sandstone, alternating with beds coloured with oxide of 

 iron, and traversed by layers of clay of various thicknesses, passing 

 downwards into sandy clay with siliceous concretions, but no fossils ; 7 

 feet (English). 



In this bed was found the Mastodon ; and not far off, in the same 

 stratum, was found a layer of a kind of brown coal, an inch thick. 

 Under this layer a stratum of limestone was observed only a few feet 

 thick ; it contained a Cardium. Of all these beds the bottom clay and 

 limestone are the only two which are constant. The bones of the 

 Mastodon skeleton that have been saved consist chiefly of the tusks and 

 molars of the upper and lower jaws, the lower jaw, an almost perfect 

 shoulder-blade, nearly all the ribs, a great number of cervical and dorsal 

 vertebra?, and the tolerably perfect bones of the fore foot. 



The bones were in a very fragile condition, and their extrication from 

 the firm, moist, loamy earth required great caution. Careful drawings 

 were made of the relative positions of the bones on the spot ; and the 

 fragments were carefully numbered, so that it is hoped they will serve 

 to construct, in the Museum of St. Petersburg, a tolerable skeleton, that 

 in its completeness will be one among the best of the preserved speci- 

 mens of the ancient Mastodons. The bones have already reached St. 

 Petersburg, and have been placed in their proper collocation by the 

 Conservator Eadde. 



In November, 1860, a supplemental notice, illustrated by drawings, of 

 tbese remains, was read before the Academy by M. Brandt. The 

 drawings are represented by a large lithographic plate in the ' Bul- 

 letin,' and are described at pp. 507-509. All the bones appear more 

 or less displaced, some only slightly ; the skull was crushed, and its 

 bones nearly all destroyed by the action of the weather. The back 

 upper molars lay apart from each other. The almost straight tusks, 

 G feet 8 inches long, and thickest at the base, were but slightly dis- 

 placed, although their alveoli had been destroyed, and they themselves 

 broken into many pieces. The tusks of the well-preserved lower jaw 

 were in their natural position, in sockets in a short characteristic 

 syinphysial process. The imperfect cervical vertebras were partly 

 displaced, and, like most of the anterior dorsal vertebras, were 

 more or less broken or decayed. Only a few of the middle and 

 posterior dorsal vertebras were tolerably preserved; indeed, but a 

 small proportion of them were found in their natural position. The 

 number of the ribs remaining nearly perfect indicated, as a general 

 rule, that all those which lay obliquely were, for the most part, in a 

 tolerably good state of preservation. The majority of these appeared 

 more or less dislocated, with the exception of the posterior ribs of the 

 left side, which were only slightly displaced. The greater part of 

 the left shoulder-blade was preserved. The right humerus, greatly 

 displaced from its natural position, and lying close upon the vertebral 

 column, is more entire than the left, which is, in connexion with the 



