XXVI. — Description of Fossil Remains of some Animals from the 

 North-East Border of Bengal. 



By J. B. PENTLAND, Esq. (In a Letter to W. H. Fitton, M.D. P.G.S.) 



[Read May 2nd, 1828.] 



My dear Sir, 



IHE researches in which I am at present engaged, having induced me to 

 make some inquiries connected with the geological structure of the great 

 mountain chains of our Asiatic empire, I was naturally led to examine the 

 numerous and interesting series of Indian rocks in the Museum of the Geo- 

 logical Society. 



My attention was particularly arrested by a collection of specimens fromCari- 

 bari in the small state of Cooch-behar, on the banks of the Brahm-putra river, 

 presented by Mr. Colebrooke, and described in his very interesting paper on 

 the Geology of the N.E. border of Bengal, — since they afford the first example 

 of the discovery of an extinct race of Mammalia in the great extent of 

 Southern Asia ; and at the same time furnish decisive proofs of the existence 

 of tertiary marine deposits, perfectly identical in geological and zoological 

 characters with those which cover so great a proportion of continental Europe 

 and of our own island. 



Among the mutilated fragments of bones referable to the order of Mam- 

 malia from the tertiary deposits of the Brahm-putra, I have succeeded in 

 discovering the remains of four distinct species: viz. 1. One species of the 

 genus Anthracotherium of Cuvier; 2. A small species of Ruminant allied to 

 the genus Moschus * ; 3. A small species of herbivorous animal referable to 

 the order Pachydermata, but more diminutive than any of the fossil or living 

 species; and 4. A carnivorous animal of the genus Viverraf. 



1. The Anthracotherium of Caribari, in the form of its molares, possesses 

 the characters belonging to the rest of the genus ; but although some of the 

 fragments which I have examined belong to a full-grown individual, the animal 



* The occurrence of the teeth of " two ruminating animals, of which one is scarcely larger 

 than the teeth of the small musk, and another belongs to a species of deer," in the tertiary coal 

 of Zurich, is mentioned in the general account given by Dr. Schintz in August 1827 to the Hel- 

 vetic Society of Natural Science, of the remains of mammifera discovered in the coal mines of that 

 canton. See Edinburgh New Phil. Journal for Sept. 1828, p. 273. 



t See PI. XLV. 

 VOL. II. — SECOND SERIES. 3 F 



