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Updated: September 4, 2025
The ELEPHAS ANTIQUUS and the RHINOCEROS MERCKII that belonged to the preceding period have now completely passed away, and the reindeer, now appearing for the first time, are still far from numerous.
No less than three species of elephant, as determined by Dr. Falconer, have been obtained from the strata 3 and 3 prime, of which, according to Mr. King, E. meridionalis is the most common, the mammoth next in abundance, and the third, E. antiquus, comparatively rare.
Falconer. Elephas meridionalis. Elephas antiquus. Rhinoceros etruscus. Mr. Gunn informs me that the vertebrae of two distinct whales were found in the fluvio-marine beds at Bacton, and that one of them, shown to Professor Owen, is said by him to imply that the animal was 60 feet long. A narwhal's tusk was discovered by Mr. King near Cromer, and the remains of a walrus.
Here with fossil shells of living species are mingled the bones of Elephas primigenius and E. antiquus, Rhinoceros tichorhinus, Hippopotamus, Felis spelaea, Hyaena spelaea, reindeer, and many others, the bones accompanying the flint implements in such a manner as to show that both were buried in the old alluvium at the same period.
At the distance of a few yards, and in the same position, but a foot or two deeper, were observed marine shells, Cyprina islandica, Astarte elliptica, A. compressa, Fusus antiquus, Littorina littorea, and a Balanus. The height above the level of the sea was between 100 and 103 feet.
A. Site of Cromer Jetty. 1. Upper Chalk with flints in regular stratification. 2. Norwich Crag, rising from low water at Cromer to the top of the cliffs at Weybourn, seven miles distant. 3. "Forest Bed," with stumps of trees in situ and remains of Elephas meridionalis, E. primigenius, E. antiquus, Rhinoceros etruscus, etc. This bed increases in depth and thickness eastward. Fluvio-marine series.
Judging from the evidence at present before us, the first appearance of Man, when, together with the mammoth and woolly rhinoceros, or with the Elephas antiquus, Rhinoceros hemitoechus, and Hippopotamus major, he ranged freely from all parts of the Continent into the British area, took place during this second continental period.
At Biddenham, and elsewhere in the same gravel, remains of Elephas antiquus have been discovered, and Mr. Wyatt obtained, January 1863, a flint implement associated with bones and teeth of hippopotamus from gravel at Summerhouse hill, which lies east of Bedford, lower down the valley of the Ouse, and 4 miles from Biddenham.
On the top of all repose very large erratic blocks, affording clear evidence that the colossal glacier which once filled the valley of the Limmat covered the old littoral deposit. The great age of the lignite is partly indicated by the bones of Elephas antiquus found in it.
R. hemitoechus, Falconer, in which the ossification of the septum dividing the nostrils is incomplete in the middle, besides other cranial and dental characters distinguishing it from R. tichorhinus, accompanies Elephas antiquus in most of the oldest British bone-caves, such as Kirkdale, Cefn, Durdham Down, Minchin Hole, and other Gower caverns also found at Clacton, in Essex, and in Northamptonshire.
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