374 I>H0CEEDi:XG3 OF IHE eBOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Mai'cll 22, 



specimens of II. major from the Val d'Arno and Auv eigne. The 

 cancelli of the bone are filled throughout with matrix resembling 

 Nile mud ; the ivory of the molars has lost a large portion of its 

 gelatine. Professor Busk, who has analyzed the specimen, found 

 that the earthy salts of the bone yielded a very large proportion of 

 carbonates ; but he failed to detect more than a very faint trace of 

 fluorine, so commonly met with in bones of great antiquity *. A 

 calcareous crust covers the enamel of the teeth. Dr. Leith Adams 

 does not indicate, in his paper, the precise stratum near Kalabshee 

 out of which the fragment was exhumed — this being a point of much 

 importance in the case. 



Geologists may be reminded that, although rarely observed, this 

 is not the first instance iu which fossil or subfossil remains of Hip- 

 popotamus have been procured from the valley of the Mle. Dr. 

 lliippell brought to Europe, in 1827, the i-emains of a species of 

 Hippopotamus from above the Cataracts. They were deposited in 

 the Senckenberg Museum at Frankfort, and indicated a species in 

 size between H. amphihius and the existing small H. Liheriensis of 

 St. Paul's Eiver, in "Western A<1|^^. I had an opportunity of 

 examining them in 1849; and iii me synopsis which I contributed 

 to Dr. Morton's account of the Liberian Hippopotamus, the species 

 was referred to, under the provisional name of H. annectens, as 

 intermediate between the two Uving species f. It may prove to be 

 of H. Pentlandi, the extinct species prevailing in Sicily, Malta, and 

 Candia, which was then unknown to me. 



Of H. major, the huge fossil form of the Yal d'Arno and Auvergne, 

 abundant remains have been found in deposits, either Pliocene or 

 Quaternary, in Algeria. A fine series of specimens derived from 

 that region is exhibited in the Museum of the Ecole des Mines in 

 Paris. 



3. Asserted Discovery of Human Bones. — The next case of Nilotic 

 fossil remains is of still higher interest, being the asserted discovery 

 of human bones in one of the conglomerate or older beds of 

 the Nile-valley alluvia, at a time when the antiquity of the human 

 race did not engage the attention of men of science as it does at the 

 present day. In Leonhard and Bronn's ' Jahrbuch ' for 1838 a series 

 of letters appeared, in which Eussegger gave some account of the 

 results of his explorations then in progress in Nubia and Sudan. 

 In one of these letters, dated Sennaar, 23rd March 1838, he de- 

 scribes the structure of the alluvial banks of the Blue Nile from 

 Khartoom up to Sennaar, and thence to Roserres, and adds that, 

 " In the alluvia of the Blue Nile at Duntai we found human bones. 



* The following gires Professoi' Busk's analysis : — 



Organic matter 7"5 



Earthy carbonates 57'5 



Phosphates, &c 35'0 



Iron a trace. 



Fluorine scarcely an indication. 



t ' Observations on a new hving Species of Hippopotamus, H. Liheriensis, 

 of Western Africa.' By Dr. Morton, Philadelphia, 184-9, p. 8. 



