ELEPHAS PRIMIGENIUS.—DISTRIBUTION. 
Mammoth having lived during pre-glacial periods has not been established by the 
specimens from the coast of Norfolk, at all events as far as the instances hitherto recorded 
are concerned. 
Professor Boyd Dawkins, in a communication made to the Geological Society, as late 
as November, 1878, recants his former opinions and returns to the belief that the 
Mammoth was /;re-glacial. This view he maintains on the above-mentioned evidences 
from the Eorest Bed and other bygone and hitherto disputed stateme nts, supported by 
a discovery lately made 1 * in making a boring at Northwich, in Cheshire. This latter 
piece of evidence is, however, like the others, faulty, from the absence of direct proofs 
as to, 1st. The exact stratigraphical horizon; 2ndly. The age of the deposits; and 3rdly, 
the mode by which the information was obtained. 
Admitting, indeed, that I feel almost assured the Mammoth preceded the Ice Age, yet 
in all justice to facts it appears to me that this verdict stands at present “ not proven.” 
I am not aware of marine or littoral discoveries north of the Dogger Bank, which, 
however, has yielded to the dredge enormous quantities of bones and teeth in conjunc¬ 
tion with relics of other Pleistocene Mammals. A large collection, made by Mr. Owles 
from the above situation, has been just lately acquired for the British Museum. 3 It 
represents almost every stage of growth from the adolescent to the aged; and the 
grinders, as will be noticed in the sequel, are interesting, as they accord closer with the 
characters of Arctic and the so-called Mammoth molars from the United States, 
rather than with the thick-plated tooth from the fluviatile deposits of Ilford, in the 
Thames Valley. 
It would be tedious and unnecessary to enumerate the various points on the East 
Coast where remains of the Mammoth have turned up, more especially in the case of the 
majority of Eorest Bed fossils, which are “ waifs and strays,” cast up and rolled about by the 
waves. Numbers of teeth and tusks have been dredged as far eastwards as trawlers and 
oyster-dredgers proceed off Yarmouth, Harwich, &c . 3 The channel of Brightlingsea 
has been also prolific of specimens. My distinguished friend Dr. Bree, of Colchester, has 
a collection made, from ten miles off Dunkirk, where, he informs me, the sea-bottom is 
so full of Mammalian fossils that sailors call it the “ Burying Ground.” The discoveries 
along the English Channel have not been so numerous, but teeth have been dredged on 
1 ‘ Geol. Soc. Abstracts and Proc.,’ No. 357, p. 2. 
3 Davies, ‘ Geol. Mag.,’ vol. v, p. 77. The National Collection now contains, perhaps, the most 
extensive assortment of extinct proboscidean remains ever brought together under the same roof. This I 
feel amply justified in stating, from personal observation, has been owing in no small degree to the discern¬ 
ment of my friend Mr. W. Davies, F.G.S., whose intimate knowledge of fossil zoology is always at the 
service of whomsoever seeks for information in the galleries under his immediate supervision. I, 
therefore, who have oftentimes been benefited by his accurate and painstaking discriminations, take this 
opportunity of recording the valuable assistance I have received from Mr. Davies in the working up of the 
materials for this Memoir and my previous Monograph on the Elephas antiqvMS. 
3 1 Brit. Fossil Mammals,’ p. 246, et seq. 
