332 
and Pliocene are equivalent, then many of the large pachy- 
derms were also existing at subsequent periods, as the 
Glacial, if not Post-glacial, and the evidence appears 
very strong in favour of the latter, for had they been 
destroyed by the Glacial detritus, it would naturally have 
consisted of boulders, &c, derived from distant regions, 
which is not the case. They must, consequently, have 
inhabited this locality after the deposit of the Great North- 
ern drift, and been suddenly submerged by some local 
lacustrine flood from the Yorkshire hills, as the gravel beds 
and clay clearly testify, which are, as I have already stated, 
almost entirely derived from the rocks of the coal formation. 
It is not a little remarkable that the Hippopotamus should 
have been the first which suggested itself as the quadruped 
to which several large fossil bones belonged, as early as 
1669, though the difficulty then presented itself as to how 
an animal inhabiting the Nile should be found in Kent. 
Still the conclusions to which one of the early writers 
came were perfectly in accordance with those of the leading 
geologists of the present day. The Rev. J. Douglas, in a 
dissertation on the Antiquity of the Earth, observes, — - 
" When we consider the great distance of the Medway from 
the Nile and other rivers near the tropics, where those kinds 
of animals are known to inhabit, and when we have no 
authority from the Pentateuch to conclude that any extra- 
ordinary convulsion of nature had impelled animals at that 
period from their native regions to countries so remote, so 
we have no natural inference for concluding that the deluge 
was the cause of this phenomenon. Taking, then, into con- 
sideration the geological features of the stratum of the river 
soil, and that as the Hippopotamus is known to be the 
inhabitant of muddy rivers like the Nile and Medway, it 
should, therefore, argue that this animal was the inhabitant 
of these regions when in a state of climature to have ad- 
mitted of its existence." 
