40 



GEOLOGY. 



From the Perissodactyle (uneven-toed) division we pass to the cases 

 in which are arranged the remains of the Artiodactyle (even-toed) 

 hoofed animals. 



In a part of Pier-case 4, and the whole of Pier-case 5 and Table- 

 case 6, adjoining, are arranged the fossil remains of the first genus 

 of this group, the Hippopotamus, now confined in the living state 

 to the shores, rivers, and lakes of Africa, but once common in 

 this country, in the Southern parts of Europe, and in India. The 

 series comprises specimens from Malta, Sicily, the Val d'Arno, Italy, 

 and from the Sewalik Hills, India. Its remains have also been 

 found in the Gower Caves, S. Wales, Kent's Cave, Torquay; Kirk- 

 dale, and near Leeds, Yorkshire, the Ouse near Bedford ; and many 

 remains have been found in the Valley of the Thames in and 

 around London. 



The series occupying one side of Table-case 6 represents the 

 fossil remains of one species, Hippopotamus Pentlandi (Falc.) obtained 

 from the Grottadi Maccagnone, near Palermo in Sicily. So abundant 

 were the remains of these animals in the various caverns near 

 Palermo that for many years their bones were exported, by ship- 

 loads, to England and Marseilles for the manufacture of lamp-black for 

 sugar-refining. Two hundred tons were removed from one cave (San 

 Ciro) in six months. Dr. Falconer writes that literally tens of thousands 

 of two species of Hippopotami have been found fossil in Sicily. He 

 points out, that, at the time these animals lived, Sicily was connected 

 by land with North Africa, and that Malta and Sicily must have 

 been continuous. (See "Falconer's Palseontological Memoirs," 1868, 

 8vo, Vol. II., pp. 544-553.) 



On the other side of Table-case 6 are placed limb-bones, vertebrae, 

 and teeth of Hippopotami from the Newer Miocene deposits of the 

 Sewalik Hills, India, most of which have been figured in Falconer 

 and Cautley's " Fauna Antiqua Sivalensis." 



The Pigs (Suida) are placed in Table-case No. 7, and comprise 

 many examples of the wild boar from Walthamstow and Grays, 

 Essex; from Limerick, Ireland; from Oreston; and more ancient 

 species from Tuscany and from Pikermi in Greece ; also two species, 

 Sus hysudricus, and Sus giganteus, from India, and the Dicotyles 

 (Peccary) from Brazil. 



The ancestors of the pigs date back to the Eocene Tertiary. 

 Among them may be counted the fossil genera Char opotamas and 

 Anthracotherium (Pier-case 4), Palaocharns, Hyopotamus, all of 

 which are old Eocene forms of ruminants, from the Isle of Wight 

 and Hampshire coast, and from the Paris Basin, having wider 

 affinities than our modern species, and affording evidence of relation- 

 ship with more than one group of Artiodactyles. 



In Pier-case No. 6 is arranged a group of fossil bones and skulls 

 of animals belonging to the Ruminantia* sl division of the even-toed 

 animals, and represented to-day by the Camel, Giraffe, etc. 



* From ruminor, I chew the cud. A group of Hoofed Quadrupeds (Ungulata) 

 which ruminate or chew the cud. 



