348 
THE ELEPHANT EPOCH. 
remains of the Palaeotheria, of crocodiles, turtles, 
birds, and fishes ; and the stems and leaves of 
palms, and other vegetables characteristic of an 
equatorial climate. In the tertiary strata of the 
south-east of England, no traces of mammalia 
have been discovered ; the organic remains con- 
sisting of shells, the bones and teeth of fishes, and 
the leaves and stems of vegetables. 
The next era is marked by the existence of the 
fossil elephant, or mammoth, in these latitudes, 
having for contemporaries a species of deer, ox, 
and horse; and in other parts of England, the 
rhinoceros, hippopotamus, &c. The teeth which 
have been found in Sussex belong to a species nearly 
allied to the Asiatic elephant, and the deposits in 
which they occur are decidedly of a more recent 
date than those above described, for they contain 
boulders of tertiary sandstone, and breccia ; while, 
in the older tertiary, the remains of the elephant 
have not been discovered. The perfect state of 
the teeth in the deposits at Brighton, forbids the 
supposition that they were transported from a dis- 
tance : and we have, too, the remarkable fact, that 
while the shingle on which the elephant bed re- 
poses, is composed not only of chalk pebbles, but 
of boulders of granite, porphyry, and other pri- 
mary rocks which must have been brought from a 
distant part of the country, and of tertiary sand- 
stone and breccia, and the sand beneath contains 
the bones of whales, no remains of elephants have 
been found therein. It would seem, therefore, that 
the sand, and tlie shingle, were formed in an estuary, 
and tliat when the upper beds were deposited, all 
