49 
new discovery. A considerable part of the fissure remains to 
be explored, and a further search is being prosecuted by Mr. 
Wardle and the author. 
Dr. White considered it probable that among the bones 
exhibited there were the remains of more than one animal. 
Mr. Binney said that Mr. Brockbank was mistaken in 
supposing that no remains of the elephant had hitherto been 
found in Derbyshire. They had been met with in two locali- 
ties in the county of Derby and one in the county of Chester. 
The late Mr. White Watson, at page 58 of his “Delineation 
of the Strata of Derbyshire,” says : — “ About the year 1663 
a large cavern was discovered in sinking for lead ore upon a 
hill at Balleye, within two miles of Wirks worth ; in which a 
large skeleton was found, which in the original account of its 
discovery is said to be £ that of a man, that his brain pan 
would have held two bushels of corn, and that it was so big 
they could not get it out of the mine without breaking it.’ 
Several of its teeth were distributed in the neighbourhood, 
one of which, with the author’s account of the discovery, is in 
the writer’s possession. The tooth is ivory, and when com- 
pared with the dentes molares of an elephant, no difference 
can be found ; from this circumstance it is evident that the 
skeleton found could not have been that of a man or giant, so 
called by the miners, who are ever prone to the marvellous, 
but must be indisputably that of an elephant, and its capa- 
cious brain pan a corresponding proof ; for after the miners 
had conferred on it the appellation of the giant’s tooth, the 
brain pan must naturally follow the proportions of its bulky 
owner. The fangs, though perfect at the time of the disco- 
very, are now broken, and no change appears to have taken 
place from its original substance. Several of these teeth were 
brought out, but the skeleton left behind, which, it is to be 
lamented, cannot now be viewed, that part of the mine 
having run in, rendering it impracticable without much 
trouble and expense.” About twenty-five years since the late 
