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THE ELEPHANT IN CHESHIRE. 



By G. H. Morton, F.G.S. 



With Plate X. 



[Read Dec. 10th, 1897.] 



Eakly in the year 1845, a few months after I began to 

 study geology and natural history, I examined the Boulder 

 Clay along the south shore, beyond the Dingle, hoping to 

 find the bones or teeth of the Elephant, but did not 

 succeed in finding either. For forty years after, I re- 

 membered making that useless search, but some years ago 

 found that it was not quite such an absurd waste of energy 

 as I had considered it to be, for although no remains of 

 the elephant have been recorded from Lancashire, the 

 bones and teeth have been found in several places in 

 Cheshire during the present century. 



In 1803, during the excavation of the Ellesmere Canal, 

 near the village of Wrenbury, the femur of Elephas 

 primigenius, four feet in length, was found. It was 

 placed in the museum of "William Bullock, in Liverpool, 

 and in 1819 was sold by auction with the rest of his 

 collections, at 22, Piccadilly, London. In a priced 

 catalogue of the collections, "The Thigh-bone of the 

 Mammoth, very large," was sold to Mr. Clift, for the 

 " Surgeon's Museum," for £14 3s. 6d., but I could not 

 find or obtain any information about it at the Koyal 

 College of Surgeons, neither is it in the catalogue of the 

 museum published many years ago. 



In the catalogue of the museum of the Eoyal Institu- 

 tion, Liverpool, the following elephantine remains occur 

 at page 76 : — 



