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BRITISH FOSSIL ELEPHANTS. 



examined also on the occasion alluded to : and Baron Anca presented me with 

 a lithographic plate containing a representation of the above, and also of molars of 

 E. antiquus discovered by him in the caverns of Palermo. The right lower molar in 

 question is contained in a portion of a ramus, but is much fractured both anteriorly and 

 posteriorly. There are seven plates, the disks of five being entire, in a length of 5 inches, 

 which allows about 0*7 inch for the thickness of each plate. 



The central expansions are rhomb-shaped, but not nearly to the extent usually 

 observed in molars of the African Elephant, with angulations which almost touch, but do 

 not, as in the latter, overlap or meet. There is crimping of the enamel ; and, altogether from 

 these and other considerations in connection with left ramus containing the entire third 

 milk molar (rig. 8 of the same plate) discovered also in the Cave of San Teodoro in the 

 same deposits, and referred to by me at page 19, and from the fact that the evidence of 

 the thick-plated molar of E. antiquus has been much augmented by later discoveries, I am 

 bound to acknowledge that the opinion I entertained in common with these two 

 distinguished anatomists, as to the proofs of the African Elephant having been found in 

 a fossil state, has, at all events as regards the Cave of San Teodoro, been altogether 

 shaken by more recent discoveries. It would be premature at present to speculate on the 

 value of the other two instances ; but whether or not E. antiquus was the ancestor from 

 whence E. Jfricanus has been derived, there is no positive evidence furnished by the 

 above materials from Sicilian deposits to show that they belong to the latter species. 



I have digressed somewhat from the strict rule in connection with the description 

 here of only British fossils, but it will be apparent that determinations so important with 

 reference to the discovery of the recent species of Elephants in a fossil state have an intimate 

 connection with extinct forms. I have therefore recorded these instances for the purpose 

 of confirming the results obtained from studies of the thick-plated tooth of E. antiquus 

 found in British strata. 



The question suggested by a study of the thick-plated variety of molar is whether or 

 not it has been discovered in connection with the other teeth of E. antiquus, or under 

 conditions likely to give rise to a race or permanent variety of the species. The fact of 

 its discovery in the fluviatile deposits throughout the Valley of the Thames, in 

 connection with the foregoing specimens, shows that the various forms of molars belonged 

 in all likelihood to contemporaneous individuals, and, as before indicated in the case of 

 the grinders of the Mammoth and Maltese Elephants, to which further reference will be 

 made in the sequel, there were thick- and thin-plated varieties, possibly occasional or 

 sexual conditions. Moreover, the three varieties have been met with in the Pre- and 

 Inter-Glacial Deposits of the Norfolk Coast, where, however, vast epochs of time 

 may be represented ; but, indeed, there are few well-established evidences of the exact stra- 

 tigraphical arrangement of the specimens from this coast either as regards the National 

 Museum, or the valuable relics brought together by Miss Gurney, Mr. Gunn, Mr. Eitch, 

 and others. 



