182 ELEPHANT, RHINOCEROS, Sec. IN THE VAL D’ARNO. 
towards its lower extremity, and would meet, but for the existence of 
the gorge cut through them, at Insica, and from which the town has 
evidently derived its name. This gorge forms the only outlet to the 
waters of the Arno, and appears to be of diluvial origin like that of 
the Derwent, at New Malton, and of the Weissent, near Muggen- 
dorf; and without it, the valley above must have been a lake: 
within the last ten years, parts of the skeletons of at least a hundred 
hippopotami have been discovered here, and placed in the Museum 
at Florence. With these are found also, in great abundance, the 
remains of rhinoceros and elephant, together with those of horses, 
oxen, several species of deer, hyaena, bear, tiger, fox, wolf, mastodon, 
hog, tapir, and beaver : they are from animals of all ages, and one of 
the elephants could not have been a week old. The analogies which 
this valley and its gorge present to those of the antediluvian lake, in 
the Vale of Pickering, and its gorge at Malton, as described in my 
account of Kirkdale, together with the resemblance of so many of the 
animals which at that time occupied these districts respectively, 
shows an identity of the antediluvian condition of Italy and England 
too striking to be overlooked; and each assists in throwing light on 
the state of the other, during that remote and obscure period in the 
history of our globe. F or the detail of the above facts relating to the 
Vale of Arno, I am indebted to a communication from Mr. Pentland, 
who is now at Florence. 
It is, however, a rare occurrence to find the remains of these ani¬ 
mals collected in such great numbers on one small spot: the bones 
and teeth are more usually scattered about irregularly among the 
