246 ELEPHAS PKLMIGENIUS. 



confirm the statement of Pallas, both being of M. Borsoni ; 

 and Lartet tells us that he had identified with certainty, as of 

 E. meridionalis, the fragment of a molar lately received by 

 M. Ravergie from St. Petersburg, adding that the specimen 

 is encrusted with the same ferruginous, sandy, and ochreous 

 matrix, as described by Pallas. 1 M. Borsoni is a constant 

 Pliocene species ; occurring in Italy in the same Sub-Apen- 

 nine beds which yield E. meridionalis ; in Prance, below 

 them ; and according to Pallas, in Russia, in beds at a lower 

 level than those which yield the Mammoth. The evidence, 

 therefore, slight and imperfectly defined though it be, gives 

 the forecast of the same order of succession upon the slopes 

 of the Urals as in Europe, namely, subaerial beds, contain- 

 ing remains of the Pliocene mammals of Italy, and above 

 them Mammoth-yielding deposits of the age of the Glacial 

 period. 



It is now well ascertained that after the Miocene period 

 great alterations in the relation of land to sea took place in 

 the regions stretching eastward from the shores of the Black 

 Sea, beyond the Caspian and the Laka of Aral. We have 

 also undoubted evidence that the true Elephantine Probos- 

 cidea, exclusive of numerous species of Stegodon and Mas- 

 todon, existed in India diuing the Miocene period. The 

 same fossil fauna has been traced from Burmah, north along 

 the foot of the Himalayahs to the frontier of Afghanistan, 

 and thence southward, along the Sooliman range to the pro- 

 montory bounding the estuary of the Indus to the west. 

 But from this point westward to the shores of the Black 

 Sea, and from the Hindoo-Koosh to the Caucasus, the entire 

 region, including Persia, Arabia, Turkistan, Armenia, and 

 Asia Minor, is almost wholly unexplored, so far as the extinct 

 mammalia of the Pliocene and Quaternary periods are con- 

 cerned. Is it not probable that when this vast tract is better 

 known, the fossil Elephants of Europe and Northern Asia 

 may be traced back towards their Miocene head-quarters in 

 India? Where the ground has been broken facts of muck 

 interest have been yielded. During the Crimean war, Colonel 

 J. M. Giels, in passing through the province of Erzeroom in 

 Armenia, discovered, close to a village called Sharvoon, near 

 Khanoos, some remnants of a fossil Elephant which he pre- 

 sented to the British Museum. Major R. Jones Garden, 

 P.G.S., being soon after on a tour in Asia Minor, and having 

 courteously offered his services, proceeded at my request to 

 the locality, to make further explorations. The remains in- 

 dicated that the skeleton of the animal had lain in the cliff 



1 Op. cit. pp. 500 and 516. 



