NOTES AND QUERIES. 



219 



of Provincial Mnsemns in the pages of The Geologist. I should have sent you 

 a communication on this subject six months ago had I not entertained the idea 

 (jf publishing, as a separate pamplilet, some obsei^vations upon the Condition of 

 Natural History Museums tluroughout the kingdom, with suggestions for putting 

 some of them in a more efficient state. I have lately visited the Museums of 

 Newca-stle, AVest Hartlepool, Whitby, Scarborough, Hull, Leeds, Kendal, Lan- 

 caster, Preston, Wamngton, Manchester, and Ipswich, and in the course of a few- 

 days I x>uqjose visiting those of Bristol, Bath, Liverpool, &c. I have only 

 time now to call the attention of yoiu- readers to the noble room which has just 

 been added to the Museiun at York, and for the erection of which nearly a 

 thousand i>ounds has been subscribed. Some time since an enonuoiLs Ichthyo- 

 saurus was discovered in the neighbourhood of "\^'hitby, and, after a good deal 

 of negotiation with the persons into whose hands this -extraordinary Samian 

 remain had fallen, 1 became the possessor of it for the sum of one huntked and 

 ten pounds. My object in making the piu-chase was the hope that, when brought 

 to York, the members of the Yorkshire Philosophical Society would raise by 

 subscription the above sum, to take the specimen off my hands and place it in the 

 Museum. We had just started a subscription when the Pvev, D. R. Roundell, of 

 Gledston, Skipton, sent me a cheque for the whole amount, that he alone might 

 have the satisfaction of presenting so grand a fos.sil to the York ^Museum. It was 

 tliis acquisition that led to the building of the new room. If you have .space for 

 its insertion you shall have some more Provincial ^Museum infonnation for your 

 June number. — Edward Charlesworth (of Yorkj." 



Mammalian Remains.— "In the 'Gentleman's Magazine' for 1757 several 

 extracts from letters communicated by ]\Ir. CoUinson, concerning mammalian 

 remain.s, are printed, of which I append a summary: — 



" 'At Barton, in Sus.sex, in July, 174(J, some bones of elephants were found. These 

 remains were nine feet deep in the giound, and were discovered by some men 

 digging a trench in the park. The remains found consisted of various bones, 

 " a large tooth (tusk), seven feet six inches in length, which, as it lay on the 

 gi'ound, was entire, but on taking it up, broke all to pieces." After this several 

 more were found in carrying on the trench, particularly the fellow to the before- 

 mentioned ivory tooth, exactly of the same length, which being taken up with 

 more care, is now to be seen, though both ends were broken off. Also two more 

 shorter tusks, of about three feet in length ; a thigh-bone, forty inches long, and 

 thirty-one inches in the thickest part. There were several other bones, as the 

 knee-pan ; but the most perfect of aU was one of the grinders, not in the least 

 decayed, with part of the jaw-bone, which together weighed above fourteen pounds ; 

 the upper pait of the tooth, where it meets its oppo.site, was .six inches and a half 

 long and three inches broad. There were several other bones not here men- 

 tioned. 



" ' But what is very remarkable is that these teeth, bones, &c. did not he close 

 together, as one might suppose those of a skeleton to do, but at some distance 

 asunder ; and the larger tusks were fidl twenty feet apart. 



" ' The Rev. Dr. Longwith, minister of Petworth, has most of them, excexiting 

 one of the largest tusks and one large bone. He was here at the taking of them 

 up, and reasonably concludes they were not thrown in by hand, but buried in the 

 universal deluge. 



" ' P.S. In the past hard winter there was killed a swan at Einsworth, between 

 Chichester and Portsmouth, lying on a creek of the sea, which had a ring round its 

 neck, with the King of Demnark's am:s on it.' 



" The following are fi'om Letter II. by Mannock Strickland, Esq., Apiil 4, 1741 : 

 — ' A few months after the foregoing letter was written, being near 3Ir. Bid- 

 dulph's, I paid him a visit, when I saw the gi^eatest part of one of the great teeth ; 

 it was seven feet and a half long ; and at Dr. Longwith' s I saw the other, with 

 the rest of the bones mentioned in Mr. Biddulph's letter, all things agTeeing 

 exactly with his descriptions. I saw also the pit it was digged out of, and 

 observed the various strata which run parallel and had never been disturbed. 



" ' Within a quarter of a mile south nuis a vast mountainous ridge of hilLs, called 



