1836.] of the Dddupur Collection. 487 



cimens than could be anticipated to result from any other mode of 

 collection. Notwithstanding these circumstances, however, it was 

 soon observed that the different parts of the head, the various frag- 

 ments of one limb, picked up at considerable distances from each 

 other, could with a little trouble be extracted from the heaps and 

 assorted ; the sharp edges and accurate junction of the fractured sur- 

 faces preventing any doubt or mistake. Such restorations proved that 

 whole extremities, perhaps entire skeletons, must occasionally have 

 been entombed in the sand, and that the upheavement of the strata 

 causing the greater number of fossils to be traversed by cracks, divided 

 them into a number of fragments, which, on the degradation of the 

 strata, were swept away by the drainage water to various distances 

 from their original sites. It became an object, if possible, to discover 

 these sites ; with this purpose in view, many of the abrupt cliffs and 

 fresh slips, with which this tertiary formation abounds, were examined ; 

 but with such little success as to render it evident that the gradu- 

 al wear of ages could alone have sufficed for the exposure and 

 dissemination of so vast a quantity of these relics on the slopes 

 and in the ravines of the hills. The scattered fragments were 

 seldom found to give any clue to the original place of deposit : in fact 

 it has but once occurred to us that a nearly entire extremity has been 

 discovered in the calcareous sandstone. And in order to illustrate the 

 foregoing remarks, we have appended a sketch of these remains*; the 

 drawing represents them as they lay after the removal of the sand 

 which at first concealed all but the lower fragment of the femur : 

 pieces of tusk, bones, and the half of a lower jaw, were found in the 

 immediate neighbourhood, and indicated that the other parts of the 

 skeleton of this mastodon elephantoides had originally been deposited at 

 no great distance from the posterior extremity which forms the sub- 

 ject of the sketch. The whole may be considered a fair example 

 both of the mode of deposition and of the subsequent dispersion 

 which lodged separate, sharp-edged fragments on the hill sides and 

 amongst the sandstone boulders of the water-courses. The rare 

 occurrence of specimens under such favorable circumstances rendering 

 excavation a very uncertain and ill requited labour, forced the native 

 collectors to be satisfied with the crop which time had exposed. 



* We regret exceedingly that the drawing on transfer paper of the fossil in 

 situ was spoiled in passing it on to the stone. This was the case also with 

 Plate XIX. a very beautiful drawing by Col. J. Colvin : but the latter officer 

 having taken the precaution of forwarding its original, a tolerable attempt has 

 been made to supply its place by M. Tassin. The initials W. E. B. to this 

 plate have been inserted by mistake. — Ed. 



