224 SHEPPARD : NOTES ON ELEPHAS ANTIQUUS AND OTHER REMAINS. 
species, though from the appearance of the section it is not likely 
that very many further additions will be made/" The bones are 
generally, but not invariably, found at the bottom of the lower gravel, 
resting on clay, but whether the Great Oolite Clay, or part of the old 
land-surface, I cannot at present say ; possibly it is both. 
Mr. Clement Reid, F.G.S., F.L.S., has been good enough to 
examine a sample of this clay for me, and states "there is nothing 
whatever in your clay from Mill Hill except one rolled foram, 
apparently derivative. The clay has been penetrated in every direc- 
tion by small root-fibres, and the fossils seem all to have decayed, as 
the deposit is full of small concretions of race. The one foram is 
apparently silicified." 
As already pointed out, the teeth and bones unfortunately occur 
in a very friable state. This is especially the case with the teeth and 
tusks of the older members of the elephant family. I have frequently 
brought away as much material as could be carried, which consisted 
entirely of minute fragments of teeth and tusks, and to piece these 
together is an impossibility. 
I had repeatedly asked the men to let me know immediately 
they came across any specimens, so that it could be seen exactly 
under what conditions they were found, and once they kept a very 
large tooth of a mammoth for me to dig out. This, as usual, 
appeared to be resting on the clay, but was surrounded and covered 
by the ferruginous gravel, which with some difficulty was cleared 
away, leaving what was apparently a perfect tooth, lying on its side, 
and measuring 12 inches by 10 inches, the grinding surface being 
7 inches long. Before lifting it, innumerable small cracks could be 
seen traversing it in all directions, and though every possible care 
was taken to get it away whole, on being moved it immediately 
crumbled to pieces, forming a heap of comminuted bone. This tooth, 
it should be noted, had belonged to a full-grown elephant. 
In one or two cases, when the teeth belonged to younger animals, 
they were in a perfect state of preservation. For example, two teeth 
of a very young mammoth, which are of precisely similar dimensions, 
and undoubtedly originally existed in the same skull, were found in 
* A few pieces of bone and a good tooth of Elephas antiquus, howe^'er, 
have been obtained since the paper was read. 
