GEOUND FLOOE. 
51 
The large front gallery first entered from the hall is entirely Remains of 
devoted to the remains of Mammalia. Along the centre are Mammals 
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, from which it is chiefly distinguished by the 
characters of its molar teeth. Beyond this is the skull of an 
Elephant {Elephas ganesa), remarkable for the immense length 
of its tusks, from the Siwalik Hills of India, and another of the 
Mammoth (MepJias 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 Deer 
{Cervus giganteics), male and female, the former distinguished 
by its magnificent palmated antlers, resembling those of a 
fallow deer on a large scale. 
Here has lately been placed, through the liberality of 
Professor 0. C. Marsh, a model of a perfect skeleton of the 
Uintatherium or Binoceras mirabile, one of the most remarkable 
of the many wonderful forms of animal life lately discovered in 
the Tertiary beds of the western portion of the United States of 
America. This animal combines in some respects the characters 
of a rhinoceros with those of an elephant, and has others 
^altogether special to itself. The group to which it belonged 
became extinct in the Miocene period, without leaving any 
successors. 
Beyond this is a skeleton of a very rare and interesting 
animal, the ISTorthern Manatee or Sea Cow {Ehytina gigas), the 
last known resort of which was Behring's Island in the iN'orth 
Pacific, where it was completely exterminated towards the close 
of the last century. In the same case is placed the skeleton of 
a smaller allied form, the Halitherium, from^the Miocene of 
South Germany. These, with their existing representatives, the 
Manatee and Dugong (see Osteological Gallery, West Wing, 
Second Eloor, p. 45), belong to the order Sirenia, aquatic mammals 
of fish-like form, presenting considerable external resemblance 
to Cctaccct (the Whales and Dolphins), although differing from 
them in many essential points of structure and^habit. 
The wall-cases on the south side (right on entering) con- Fossil remains 
tain remains of Man found under such circumstances as may 
E 2 
