IV.—On the Discovery of a Skeleton of the Hippopotamus in Post-pliocene Drift near Motcomb, Dorset

Extract

The existence of Post-pliocene deposits in this neighbourhood has until lately been quite unknown, nothing of the kind having been detected either by the Geological Survey or subsequent observers. However, in tlie winter of 1866, a small section was exposed in a brick-field situated on a low rising-ground at the first milestone out of Shaftesbtiry towards Gillingham, and known as Hawkers' Hill. The clay here dug for brickmaking is Kimmeridge, presenting fossilized bones of the Pliosaurus and Icthyosaurus, and very friable remains of an Ammonite, etc. The attention of the writer was first attracted to the Drift on observing, above part of the Kimmeridge clay, a thin section of soil of an ochreous tint due to oxide of iron, and somewhat resembling the loose stratum of chert and sand which caps the neighbouring Green-sand rock. He learnt on inquiring of the labourers that they had recently found some large bones in this deposit, but thinking them of no use they had wheeled them off with the rubbish, in which they then lay, efiectually re-buried. Much interested at this announcement, he induced the men again to remove the rubbish, and found that the bones were some vertebræ of a large mammalian animal, together with fragments of the ribs and leg-bones. They were, of course, not at all fossilized, and their original weak state had been sadly aggravated by a second burial and disinterment. Nothing more was turned out that winter, and it was not until the end of 1867, that digging was resumed. Further portions of the same skeleton were now found, including another instalment of vertebræ, and portions of the skull and jaws. With the latter were several teeth in a suffciently entire state to show that the creature weis undoubtedly a Hippopotamus; numerous fragments of the tusks affording further proof of this. The writer now frequently visited and watched “the diggings,” and after a short time two horn-cores, considerable portions of the skull, and some fragments of the leg-bones of Bison priscus of unusual size came to light. The more perfect horn-core is 18 inches long and 14: inches in diameter at the base.