BRITISH IMUSEUM (NATURAL HISTORY). 
35 
EAST WING. 
Ground Floor. 
The ground floor of this wing consists, as on the other side of Paiseontologi- 
the building, of a gallery running east and west the whole length Collection, 
of the wing in front, of a smaller parallel gallery behind it, and 
leading from the latter, a series of galleries running north and 
south. The whole of this floor is occupied by the collection of 
the remains of animals and plants which no longer exist in a 
living state upon the earth. They are arranged mainly upon 
zoological principles, that is, the forms which are supposed to 
have natural affinities are placed together, but within some of the 
great divisions thus mapped out, especially of the Invertebrata 
and plants it has been found convenient, to adopt a strati- 
graphical or even geographical grouping, the fossils of different 
geological formations being kept apart, and those of the British 
Isles separated from those of foreign localities. 
As this portion of the Museum is fully described in the 
Illustrated Guide* it will only be necessary to give a brief 
account of it here. 
The large front gallery first entered from the hall is entirely Remains of 
devoted to the remains of Mammalia. Along the centre are ^^^^^^jg 
placed a number of large and striking objects, of too great a size 
to be contained in the wall-cases. The first is a nearly complete 
skeleton of the American mastodon, an animal closely allied to 
the elephant. Beyond this is the skull of an elephant {Elerplias 
ganesa) remarkable for the immense length of its tusks, from the 
Si valik Hills of India, and another oj. the European mammotli 
{L U'phas primigenius), with huge curved tusks in a perfect state 
of preservation, found in the brick earth at Ilford in Essex. 
Then follow skeletons of the great extinct Irish Elk (Megaceros 
giganteus), male and female, of the Ehytina, or sea cow of the I 
North Pacific, only exterminated towards the close of the last 
century, and of the South American gigantic sloth-like Mega- 
therium and Mylodon. 
The wall-cases on the south side (right on entering) contain 
* * Guide to the Exhibition Galleries of the Department of Geology and 
PalcTontology,' 1886. Price fourpence. 
D 2 
