ELEPHAS PRIMIGENIUS.— DISTRIBUTION. 73 



Mammoth having hved during pre-glacial periods has not been established by the 

 specimens from the coast of Norfolk, at all events as far as the instances hitherto recorded 

 are concerned. 



Professor Boyd Davi^kins, in a communication made to the Geological Society, as late 

 as November, 1878, recants his former opinions and returns to the belief that the 

 Mammoth was j»re-glacial. This view he maintains on the above-mentioned evidences 

 from the Forest Bed and other bygone and hitherto disputed statements, supported by 

 a discovery lately made ^ in making a boring at Northwich, in Cheshire. This latter 

 piece of evidence is, however, like the others, faulty, from the absence of direct proofs 

 as to, 1st. The exact stratigraphical horizon; 2ndly. The age of the deposits; and 3rdly, 

 the mode by which the information was obtained. 



Admitting, indeed, that I feel almost assured the Mammoth preceded the Ice Age, yet 

 in all justice to facts it appears to me that this verdict stands at present " not proven." 

 I am not aware of marine or littoral discoveries north of the Dogger Bank, which, 

 however, has yielded to the dredge enormous quantities of bones and teeth in conjunc- 

 tion with relics of other Pleistocene Mammals. A large collection, made by Mr. Owles 

 from the above situation, has been just lately acquired for the British Museum.^ It 

 represents almost every stage of growth from the adolescent to the aged ; and the 

 grinders, as will be noticed in the sequel, are interesting, as they accord closer with the 

 characters of Arctic and the so-called Mammoth molars from the United States, 

 rather than with the thick-plated tooth from the fiuviatile deposits of Ilford, in the 

 Thames Valley. 



It would be tedious and unnecessary to enumerate the various points on the East 

 Coast where remains of the Mammoth have turned up, more especially in the case of the 

 majority of Forest Bed fossils, which are " waifs and strays," cast up and rolled about by the 

 waves. Numbers of teeth and tusks have been dredged as far eastwards as trawlers and 

 oyster-dredgers proceed off Yarmouth, Harwich, &c.^ The channel of Brightlingsea 

 has been also prolific of specimens. My distinguished friend Dr. Bree, of Colchester, has 

 a collection made, from ten miles off Dunkirk, where, he informs me, the sea-bottom is 

 so full of Mammalian fossils that sailors call it the " Burying Ground." The discoveries 

 along the English Channel have not been so numerous, but teeth have been dredged on 



' ' Geol. Soc. Abstracts and Proc.,' No. 357, p. 2. 



2 Davies, • Geol. Mag.,' vol. v, p. 11 . The National Collection now contains, perhaps, the most 

 extensive assortment of extinct proboscidean remains ever brought together under the same roof. This I 

 feel amply justified in stating, from personal observation, has been owing in no small degree to the discern- 

 ment of my friend Mr. W. Davies, F.G.S., whose intimate knowledge of fossil zoology is always at the 

 service of whomsoever seeks for information in the galleries under his immediate supervision. I, 

 therefore, who have oftentimes been benefited by his accurate and painstaking discriminations, take this 

 opportunity of recording the valuable assistance I have received from Mr. Davies in the working up of the 

 materials for this Memoir and my previous Monograph on the Elephas antiquus. 



3 ' Brit. Fossil Mammals,' p. 246, et seq. 



