THE ELEPHANT IN CHESHIRE. 157 



A tooth of the elephant is reported to have been found 

 at Northwich, and Professor Boyd Dawkins refers to it as 

 Eleplias primigenius, but gives no particulars about it, or 

 as to whether it has been preserved. In the Monograph 

 on ''British Fossil Elephants," by Dr. A. Leith Adams, 

 F.B.S., Eleplias primigenius and E. antiques have both 

 been recorded from Cheshire. Professor Boyd Dawkins 

 has recorded Eleplias antiquus as occurring at Copen 

 Hall, but he no doubt refers to Coppenhall in Cheshire, 

 and so adds another species and a fourth locality. These 

 localities are not far apart, for they are all situated along 

 a curved line twenty-two miles in length, between North- 

 wich on the north and Mar bury on the south. 



The strata at Wrenbury and Marbury, where the femur 

 and tooth were found, are the "Middle Sands" of the 

 glacial deposits, and they are not only well developed in 

 those localities, but also at Northwich and Sandbach, and 

 probably at Coppenhall, for they cover the whole of the 

 level land of Mid-Cheshire, and are of such a considerable 

 thickness that little can be seen of the underlying Boulder 

 Clay and Keuper Marl. 



The " Middle Sands " are very feebly developed around 

 Liverpool, but in the district referred to must often be one 

 hundred feet in thickness, and represent an interval when 

 the sea was comparatively clear of the ice, which caused 

 the deposition of the Boulder Clay, both below and above 

 the "Middle Sands." The deposit is principally sand, but 

 contains occasional and sometimes thick beds of gravel, 

 and in some places many species of mollusca. The Rev. 

 T. W. Norwood has collected about twenty species in the 

 " Middle Sands " at Marbury. 



It was in the "Middle Sands" that all the teeth and 

 bones described were found, and as both Eleplias primi- 



