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They form patches rarely exceeding twenty feet in thickness, resting on white chalk. At their junction with the chalk there invariably intervenes a bed called the "Stone-bed," composed of unrolled chalk-flints, commonly of large size, mingled with the remains of a land fauna comprising Mastodon arvernensis, Elephas meridionalis, and an extinct species of deer.
It is important to dwell on this point, because some geologists have felt disinclined to believe in the genuineness of the "fossil man of Denise," on the ground that, if conceded, it would imply that the human race was contemporary with an older fauna, or that of the Elephas meridionalis.
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.
The latter, belonging to the period of the mammoth, might very well have been contemporary with the modern volcanic eruptions of Central France; and we may presume, even without the aid of the Denise fossil, that Man may have witnessed these. But the tuffs and gravels in which the Elephas meridionalis are embedded were synchronous with an older epoch of volcanic action, to which the cone of St.
For the present we must be content to wait and consider that we have made no investigations which entitle us to wonder that the bones or stone weapons of the era of the Elephas meridionalis have failed to come to light.
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.
When we duly consider all these changes which have taken place since the beginning of the glacial epoch, or since the forest of Cromer and the Elephas meridionalis flourished, we shall find that the phenomena become more and more intelligible in proportion to the slowness of the rate of elevation and depression which we assume.
It is a fact that, chronologically speaking, man lived in the glacial period according to French scientists, even before it; and that, palæontologically speaking, man and mammoth lived at the same time, and, according to a discovery made some thirty years ago at Denise in Middle France, probably even man and another older and defunct form of pachydermata, the elephas meridionalis, in North America man and the mastodon.
Triton verruculosus, G.B. Sowerby. 18. Sigaretus subglobosus, G.B. Sowerby. 19. Natica solida, G.B. Sowerby. Terebra undulifera, G.B. Sowerby. 21. Terebra costellata, G.B. Sowerby. 22. Dentalium giganteum, do. 24. Dentalium sulcosum, do. 25. Cardium multiradiatum, do. 27. Venus meridionalis, do. 28. Pecten, fragments of.
Oreodaphne Heerii. Leaf half natural size. I have already alluded to the Newer Pliocene deposits of the Upper Val d'Arno above Florence, and stated that below those sands and conglomerates, containing the remains of the Elephas meridionalis and other associated quadrupeds, lie an older horizontal and conformable series of beds, which may be classed as Older Pliocene.
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