The view therefore, advanced by Dr. Falconer and Admiral Spratt, that Europe was connected with Africa by a bridge of land, extending northwards from Sicily, is fully borne out by an examination of the fossil remains both of that island and of Malta (see Fig. 129).[252] _Fossil Mammalia in Algeria._ If the African mainland extended to Europe in the direction of the Straits of Gibraltar, and of Malta and Sicily, so as to afford passage for the African mammalia into Europe, it would equally afford passage for the southern advance into Africa of some of the European mammalia. Evidence of this we meet with in a stratum of clay at Mansourah, near Constantine, in Algeria, described by M. Bayle in 1854.[253] The animals which he obtained, consisting of the ox, antelope, hippopotamus, and elephant, have been described by Prof. Gervais. An examination of his figure of a fragment of a molar tooth leaves no room for doubt, that the _Elephas meridionalis_ was living in north Africa during the pleistocene age; that is to say an extinct animal, the head-quarters of which are to be found in Italy, ranged as far south as northern Africa. _Living Species common to Europe and Africa._ The former continuity of Africa by way of the Iberian peninsula and Sicily, may also be inferred by the distribution of the mammalia at the present time. Prof. Gervais[254] observes that most of the insectivora are the same in Europe and north Africa. The genette and ferret (_Fœtorius furo_), the _Mangousta Widdringtoni_ (Gray), and the fallow deer, are common to Spain and Africa. The porcupine of Algeria belongs to the same species as that of Italy and Sicily, and the wild boar does not present any characters of importance by which it can be separated from that of Europe. From the present range, therefore, of the mammalia the same conclusion may be drawn as to the continuity of Africa with Europe as is afforded by their distribution in the pleistocene age. _Evidence of Soundings._