and classifying them into a marvellous system. Persons born since the commencement of the present century remember geology in its prescientific condition, and will recal with a thoughtful smile the detached fact, the isolated mineral specimen, or remarkable local formation, which first drew their attention to the subject.
The long, grey, old church of West Ham, which stands half a mile riverward of Stratford, contained, in years past, some objects likely to attract the wandering eyes of a child during a sermon. The great silken colours of the West Ham Volunteers hung dustily and discoloured below the tall chancel arch. Below them, an elaborate lion and unicorn, the size of cubs, smiled ferociously on the preacher as he passed between them to his elevated pulpit; and at the east end of the church, leaning against an altar-tomb, two immense bones rested—one being a shoulder-blade, three feet in length, and the other a rib—concerning which relics the inquirer was shortly answered that they were mammoth bones. The spark of interest thus kindled in our own breast towards osteology might have easily died out again, had it not been followed, some two and thirty years ago, by a neighbour presenting to our youthful collection of curiosities a few pieces of fossillated ivory, exhumed at Ilford in a spot where the ground had been opened for brickmaking. Many persons visited the diggings daily; but until lately, when an enlightened curiosity has been established, the discoveries ceased to command attention; and, doubtless, great numbers of mammoth relics have been found, and then lost for ever. During the last two years, however, greater care has been taken. The proprietor of the brick-field gave to a gentleman in the neighbourhood, much devoted to geology, full powers over all the animal remains discovered—and, what was of the highest importance, left orders that his workmen should notify to Mr. Brady their having come upon any bones. Thus he was able to examine them in situ, and to prevent, in a great measure, their injury or destruction. In this one field (and there are two other brick-fields near it) the remains of at least eight elephants have been brought to light. A short account of their discovery was read by Mr. Brady at the meeting of the British Association at Aberdeen, in September last. The bones of the elephant (Elephas primigenius) are found associated with those of the rhinoceros, the Irish elk, the horse, and the ox. An immense tusk was discovered, fourteen feet below the level of the soil, to see which, before it was disturbed, Sir Charles Lyell and other eminent geologists were invited. The tusk was deficient of both extremities, but the portion rescued was nine feet long and of great thickness. Since that time a bone of enormous size belonging to a whale has been extracted.
The geological position of these relics is the Pleistocene, or latest tertiary formation. The vein in which they occur varies from five to ten feet in thickness, and consists of sandy gravel. It underlies the band of brick-earth already mentioned, into which some of the bones intrude, and thus attract the notice of the brick-makers. Above the brick-earth is the extensive and valuable bed of scarlet gravel for which this part of Essex is celebrated. This bed, with the vegetable mould which covers it in, is from four to six feet in depth at Ilford. In other spots the gravel has been worked as deep as twenty feet. Beneath all is the great deposit of the London clay.
Though the excavations at Ilford have been singularly productive in the discovery of animal remains, it is not to be understood that they exist in that site only. In other parts of Essex and also in Middlesex coming within the basin of the Thames, similar bones have been brought to light. Remains of the elephant have been met with at Grays, at Harwich, at Erith, at Brentford, at Kingsland, and, within a few months past, at Charing Cross. At Erith the lion and hyæna, and at Grays the bear, add the carnivora order to the list of animals given above.
A view of the circumstances leads to the plausible conjecture that, in its main features, the configuration of land and water was the same when these herds of strangely associated animals lived as it is now. The estuary of the Thames probably ran up farther inland; and the waters of the river, before they had cut themselves deep channels, and before the hand of man was at work to confine them within useful limits, spread widely in marsh and morass, till they touched the feet of the hills in Kent and Essex. Dr. Anderson has lately speculated on the condition of the Mediterranean, before a sinking of the ground-level between the Pillars of Hercules allowed the Atlantic waves to fill the depressed savannah through which the Eastern waters made their way to the ocean, and expatiated to great distances on either side their centre course. Thus, he accounts for the remains of hippopotami found there—the herds of which must have been counted not by thousands, but by tens of thousands.
But it must always be remembered in the case of the Essex deposits we have described, that they are in the drift—a name at once suggestive of the washing together, or other transportation of rocks and organisms, which may previously have been scattered, and distant from each other. Indeed, where carnivora abound, the weaker kinds among the other orders must necessarily disappear. To meet with traces of their association in one place would indicate a disturbance either of the surface on which they dwelt, or of their very natures. We can hardly conceive of “a happy and united family” on so grand a scale, and without the restraints of a cage or a keeper.
In all this search for bones in the drift, and it has now been long and extensive, no flint instruments or any presumptive remains of man have been discovered. This evidence is, it is true, negative only; but it has its significance, and must be allowed its due weight in the discussion proceeding as to the first era of mankind. The drift and the gravel are the concluding page of geological history. The animals found do not differ greatly in their construction from existing species; some of them are identical; the date of their disappearance does not require to be removed very greatly from our historic period. Therefore, if anywhere, we have here a right to anticipate the discovery of traces of human existence; but there are none—none up to the present time have been