282 PHYSIOGRAPHY. [chap. 



othar parts of the world. Such, for example, is the httle 

 shell represented in Fig. 83, and known as Cyrciia, or 

 Corbicula, flufninalis. This is not uncommon in the old 

 deposits of the Thames, but is not living at the present time 

 in any English, or indeed in any European river, though 

 it is still found in the Nile and in Kashmir. 



While the shells of the old Thames deposits represent 

 species, most of which are still living in Britain, it is far 

 otherwise with the bones which are found in the same beds. 

 Many of these bones, indeed, are those of animals extremely 

 different from any which now inhabit this country, or are 

 known to have inhabited it within historical times. And, 

 \ et, there can be no doubt that the animals which have left 

 these remains, once lived and died within the area of the 

 Thames basin. Just as the coins or the pieces of pottery 

 which are found in old " made ground " beneath London, 

 are unquestionable relics of the people who dwelt in the 

 city, when the soil was in course of accumulation ; so, these 

 bones represent the animals which roamed over the Thames 

 valley during the period when the deposits in which they 

 occur were in course of formation. 



When the brick-earths of Kent and Essex were being 

 deposited, the fauna, or animal population, of the Thames 

 basin, included, in addition to many animals still living 

 here, a number of extinct mammals,^ such as the mammoth 

 [E/epkas primige/iius) ; this was a kind of elephant adapted 

 to live in a cold climate by having a thick woolly coat. 

 Fig. 84 represents a restoration of this extinct elephant.- 

 Another species of elephant {E. antiquus) also lived in the 



1 Mammals, from Lat. maninia, breast ; a great group of back-boned 

 animals which suckle their young. 



"•' This is reduced from Brandt's figure in his Mittheilungen iibci- die 

 Natwgeschkhte des Mammutli vdcr Mamont. St. Petersburg. 1866. 



