ELEPHANT REMAINS IN CANADA. 135 



chronology. It would seem at present that the facts can be ex- 

 plained on either view; and that the possibility of reconciling these 

 views must depend on the greater or less evidence which geolo- 

 gists may find of more rapid changes than they have heretofore 

 supposed within the'fhuntan period. Our own impression, derived 

 from a careful study of all the facts so well stated by Sir C. 

 Lyell, is that the tendency will be in this direction, that the ap- 

 parent antiquity of the comparatively insignificant deposits con- 

 taining remains of man and his works will be reduced, and that 

 a more complete harmony than heretofore between the earliest 

 literary monuments of the human race and geological chronology 

 will result. At present the whole inquiry is making rapid pro- 

 gress, and the time may perhaps be not far distant when its 

 difficulties will receive some such solution. In the meantime both 

 of the writers whose works are noticed in this article, deservec areful 

 study, and will be found to contribute much toward the solution 

 of these great questions. j. w. d. 



Art. XL — On the remains of the Fossil Elephant found in 

 Canada; by E. Billings, F.G.S. 



{Read before the Natural History Society of Montreal, 23rd Feb., 1863.) 



The remains of the Elephant, now in the Provincial Geologi- 

 cal Museum, were found in 1852, at Burlington Heights, near 

 Hamilton, at the western extremity of Lake Ontario, about forty 

 feet beneath the surface, and sixty feet above the level of the lake. 

 The workmen engaged in making an excavation on the line of 

 the Great "Western Railway, first cut through thirty feet of stratified 

 gravel, composed of small pebbles of limestone, and so strong- 

 ly cemented that it could only be removed by blasting. Below 

 this gravel, there was met with a deposit of coarse sand ; and in 

 this the bones were discovered. The geological age of this de" 

 posit is not yet determined with certainty ; but is supposed to be 

 that of the well-known lake-ridges and terraces, which were ap- 

 parently formed just after the close of the upper drift period ; 

 and either while the waters of the lake stood at a higher level 

 than they do at present, or perhaps while the basin of the lake 

 formed an arm of the sea. 



The following are descriptions of the more important bones 

 found at this locality. 



