STRAIGHT-TUSKED ELEPHANT. 
27 
Mr. \V. J. Harrison, F.Gr.S., writes, in his ‘ Geology of Leicestershire 
and Eutland ’ (p. 48 ) : — “ Near Thurmaston there is a very large pit by the 
side of the Midland Railway main line, from which large quantities of gravel 
have been taken by the railway company for ballast. In 1874 portions of a 
tooth from this spot found their way to the IMuseum.* 'We at once visited 
the place, and from the workmen’s account a complete skull of the Mammoth 
seems to have been found. The tooth having ‘ dropped out,’ was preserved; 
but the head was broken up and sent away in the ballast-waggons. Further 
north, at Kegworth,f teeth have been met with ; one is also recorded from 
the Abbey IMeadow, near Leicester, at a depth of 8 ft. or 9 ft.?; and from several 
other spots in the valley of the Soar.” A well-preserved tooth, found in making 
a culvert in 'Wood Street, Belgrave Road, in 1883, at a depth of between 10 
and 11 ft. in undisturbed gravel, was purchased for the Museum, on 14th Sept., 
1884. A tooth — found in excavating for a new gasometer at Loughborough, 
at a depth of 12 ft. in gravel, resting on Keuper marl, in the spring of 1888 — 
was kindly lent to me for reference, by !Mr. J. B. Ball, C.E. 
The late Dr. Leith Adams, in his beautiful monograph on “ The British 
Fossil Elephants ” (Palaeontographical Society, 1877-81), Part II., PI. XIII., 
figures profile and crown views of a left upper, last true, molar from Kirby Park, 
IMelton Mowbray, marked No. 35 in the 'Woodwardian Museum, Cambridge. 
STRAIGHT-TUSKED ELEPHANT. Elephas antiqious (Falconer). 
Of Early Pleistocene age, and, like the preceding, not extending into 
the Pre-Historic Period. — It is recorded by Mr. Jas. Plant, F.G.S., in the 
‘Transactions of the Leicester Lit. and Phil. Soc.,’ 1858, pp. 20-21, that, in the 
spring of that year, “ the workmen in the employment of Mr. Cayless, of 
Barrow, while engaged in removing the Post-Pleiocene Gravel, which there 
covers the I.ower Lias, came upon the remains of an extinct Proboscidean of 
considerable dimensions. The animal, which measured about 11 ft. in length, 
was lying on its side, nearly two yards from the surface, and only a few inches 
above the bed of blue marl which constitutes the uppermost member of the 
lower lias at Barrow. So perfect was it, when first discovered, that the integu- 
ments were plainly discernible. In a short time, however, exposure to the 
atmosj)here produced its wonted effects, and, of the whole skeleton, it was only 
possible to preserve portions of the tusks, four teeth, part of a femur, and a 
targe fragment of the scapula. Some of these remains have been deposited 
* This is recorded in the Museum Report for 1874, as “Tooth of a Mammoth. Thurmaston 
Gravel-pits. Master Hawke.” There are, however, only two pieces now in the IMuseum. 
t A portion of a tooth of if. primigenius is in the Museum, labelled “ Kegworth,” but 
without date. 
+ This is in the Museum, and was found in Oct., 1871, and presented by Mr. G. H. 
Nevinson. 
