OF THE NILE AND GANGES. 



(533 



the country, as high as the confluence of the ' Blue ' and 

 ' White ' rivers, and latterly above it. The alluvial deposits 

 along the banks appear in many places to be developed in 

 great force ; and the lowermost present characters which 

 would refer their origin back to a high antiquity. But 

 although fossil wood and shells of land- and fresh- water Mol- 

 lusca have been very generally met with in these deposits, 

 Mammalian remains have been but very rarely observed, and 

 the instances on record only cursorily described. These will 

 be referred to in the sequel. Any case which is calculated 

 to direct attention to this neglected walk of observation 

 deserves to be noticed. 



2. Fossil Hippopotamus. — The specimen sent to the Geolo- 

 gical Society by Dr. Leith Adams consists of a fragment of 

 the left maxillary, containing in situ the two last upper true 

 molars of a very large Hippopotamus. Of these the penulti- 

 mate is far advanced in wear, the crown-divisions having 

 been ground down to the common nucleus of ivory, leaving 

 only two small islets of enamel upon the depressed disc. The 

 last molar is but partially worn, the two pairs of trefoil com- 

 prising the crown-surface being distinct both in the longi- 

 tudinal and transverse directions. 



The molar teeth present the ordinary characters of the 

 existing Hippopotamus of the upper part of the Valley of the 

 Nile and Senegal, but in size they equal those of the great 

 extinct form of Europe, Hippopotamus major of Cuvier. I 

 have compared them with the corresponding molars of the 

 largest specimen of the living species that has come under 

 my observation, being the huge male skull No. 3,405 of the 

 Hunterian collection, in the Museum of the Royal College of 

 Surgeons, and with a set of specimens of H. major from 

 the Val d'Arno, presented by Mr. Pentland to the British 

 Museum. 



The following are the comparative dimensions : — 



From these figures it will be seen that the molars in the 

 Kalabshee specimen are as large as the majority of those of 



