TRANSLATIONS AND NOTICES 



GEOLOGICAL MEMOIRS. 



On Fossil Rhinoceros Remains. By C. Giebel. 



[Jahresb. naturw. Vereines in Halle. 1851, pp. 2-9.] 



From the great abundance in which fossil bones of the Rhinoceros 

 occur throughout Europe, there is no doubt that for a long time, fossil 

 remains not having yet met with scientific consideration, they were 

 abundantly collected and, mixed with other remains, were sold as the 

 unicorne fossile. In my own family for a century past has the sale 

 of the fossil Unicorn, from the gypsum-quarries of the Seveckenberg*, 

 near Quedlinberg, been carried on with foreign travellers ; and the 

 descriptions of the bones, as handed down from father to son, tend 

 to prove that the majority belonged to Rhinoceros. Their true ex- 

 planation, however, could not have been given at this early period, 

 as nothing had yet been known of the teeth and skeleton of the living 

 Rhinoceros. This knowledge was supplied by Worm, who thereby 

 afforded Grew, in 1681, the means of asserting the existence of the 

 Rhinoceros in a fossil state. In 1668 a fragment of an upper jaw 

 had been exhumed at Chartham near Canterbury ; in this the form 

 and position of the orbits were evident, which enabled Grew to refute 

 Somner's assertion f that this fragment of skull had belonged to the 

 Hippopotamus J . 



The next determination of fossil Rhinoceros bones we meet with 

 is half a century later. Numerous bones had been found near 

 Herzberg, in the Hartz, which, from their great size, had been taken 

 for those of the Elephant. HoUman compared them with the skele- 

 tons of the Elephant and Hippopotamus, atid conjectured, on account 

 of their striking dissimilarity to both, that they belonged to the Rhi- 

 noceros. To confirm his conjecture he transmitted a tooth to Meckel, 

 who, during his stay in Paris, compared it with the Rhinoceros, 

 afterwards described by Buffon and Daubenton, and recognized its 

 perfect identity §. A mass of material, far richer than had yet been 

 collected in England and Germany, was found by Pallas in the Peters- 



* [For an account of these quarries by M. Giebel, see Jahresb. loc. cit. p. 15 e^ 

 seq. — Transl.] 



t Philos. Transact. 1701. 



% [See also Owen's Brit. Foss. Mam. p. 331. — Transl.] 



§ Akten Getting. Gesellschaft, vol. ii. 1752. 

 VOL. VIII. — PART II. C 



