632 



ANCIENT FLUVIATILE DEPOSITS 



XXVII. ON THE ASSEETED OCCUEEENCE OF HU- 

 MAN BONES IN THE ANCIENT FLU- 

 VIATILE DEPOSITS OF THE NILE 

 AND GANGES; WITH COMPAEATIVE 

 EEMAEKS ON THE ALLUVIAL FOEMA- 

 TION OF THE TWO VALLEYS. 1 



I. FLUVIATILE DEPOSITS OF THE NILE : 1. GENERAL REMARKS — 2. FOSSIL 



HIPPOPOTAMUS — 3. ASSERTED DISCOVERY OF HUMAN BONES 4. ANALOGY 



OF THE FLUVIATILE DEPOSITS OF THE NILE WITH THOSE OF THE GANGES 



II. FLUVIATILE DEPOSITS OF THE GANGES : 1. PHYSICAL FEATURES 



OF THE VALLEY OF THE GANGES 2. MAMMALIAN FOSSILS 3. FOSSIL 



MOLLUSC A 4. GENERAL INFERENCES III. ANTIQUIT5T OF MAN IN INDIA : 



CONCLUSION. 



§ I. Fluviatile Deposits or the Nile. 



1. General Remarks. — The object of this communication is 

 to bring together the few instances on record of the occur- 

 rence of Mammalian fossil remains in the Valley of the Nile, 

 and to institute a comparison between the Nilotic alluvial 

 deposits and those of the upper part of the Valley of the 

 Ganges which have come under my own observation. Fossil 

 human bones have, according to certain statements, been met 

 with in both of these sub-tropical valleys ; and it may be 

 useful, at the present time, to consider to what general infe- 

 rences the cases lead, as a guide to future observation. 



The explorations conducted by the French authorities in 

 Algeria have brought to light numerous remains of Hippo- 

 potamus and of other Mammalia, extinct or living, from the 

 later deposits of that part of Africa ; but it is not a little 

 singular that the Valley of the Nile has heretofore been so 

 unproductive, considering the stream of intelligent travellers 

 that flows up the river every season from Alexandria to the 

 Cataracts, and the not insignificant number of accomplished 

 explorers, German, French, and English, who have traversed 



1 The author was engaged in -writing 

 this paper immediately before his fatal 

 iliness. What was completed was pub- 

 lished after his death in the ' Quarterly 



Journal of the Geological Society' for 

 November 1865, from which it is now 

 reprinted. — [Ed.] 



