DR. H. POHLlGr ON FOSSIL ELEPHANTS. 179 



12. Helladotherium, sp. Probably the same as at Pikermi. 



[13. Giraifa attica ] ,. ^ x j i i -i 



^^ A CT7- 7 • , • h according to Lydckker. 

 [14. Felis brevirostris J o j j 



15. Hyaena, cf. escimia. 



16. Canis? sp.* 



The list will doubtless be increased by material recently received. 



As regards the remains of Pleistocene and cave-mammals (such 

 as Rhinoceros ticJiorJimus, Hycena spelcea, &c.) cited by Brandt and 

 Grewingk as coming from Maragha according to the reports of 

 Gobel and Khauikoff, no traces of them have been found either by 

 myself or my successor. It is true that there are several caverns 

 or grottos in the environs of the city, but they are labyrinths or 

 chambers made artificially in the compact mnrls or in the volcanic 

 tuffs of the Pliocene ; it seems to me therefore that a Pleistocene 

 fauna does not really occur in the Maragha valley, and that its 

 supposed presence must be founded upon some confusion in the 

 statements of Russian travellers. 



II. 



In the same journey I visited the Caucasian Museum at Tiflis 

 and found in it several fossil remains of Elephants from both sides 

 of the chain of the Caucasus. Por the most part they are remains 

 of the true Mammoth {Elephas primigenius, Blum.), so that it is 

 evident that that cosmopolitan monster passed over the high Caucasus 

 as well as, in Europe, the Alps and Pyrenees ; this is interesting also 

 with regard to the so-called E. armeniacus of Ealconer, found at 

 Erzeroum. 



The Tiflis museum contains a last true molar of E. primigenius 

 from the Sundsha river, north of the Caucasus ; it is the broadest 

 proboscidian molar hitherto found, having an extreme breadth of 

 0*13 to 0-14 metre. From Daghestan, in Transcaucasia, there is, 

 among others, an os innominatum of E. primigenius, having a very 

 typical foramen ovale of 0-195 X 0*1 metre ; and a large calcaneum, 

 of 0*27 X 0*19 metre was found at Alexandropol, at an altitude of 

 5000 feet. There are also some very heavy bones and fragments of 

 molars from the Kuban river, north of the Caucasus ; the molars 

 have the characters of those of E. meridionalis, Nesti, containing 

 three ridges in 0-05 metre of the length of the crown. 



In the preceding section I have already recorded the fossil 

 remains of Proboscidia found in the Maragha Pliocene. At Teheran 

 I heard that Dr. Tholozan, physician to the Shah, possessed fossil 

 Elephant remains found in Persia ; unfortunately he was absent at 

 the time, but he has since written to me that he has a fossil 

 elephant's tooth {E. primigenius) from Radechane in Khorassan. 



* The state of preservation of these bones is very similar to that of those 

 from Pikermi ; they are generally white, sometimes reddened by the marls 

 containing them, and rendered very heavy by the presence in them of a 

 considerable amount of vivianite. 



a. J. G. S. No. 166. 



