Evolution (Biology); Glacial epoch; Human beings -- Origin; Human evolution
I have already alluded to the recent discovery of this same ox near
Chauny, in the valley of the Oise, in France; and in 1856 I found
a skull of it preserved in the museum at Berlin, which Professor
Quenstedt, the curator, had correctly named so long ago as 1836, when
the fossil was dug out of drift, in the hill called the Kreuzberg, in
the southern suburbs of that city. By an account published at the time,
we find that the mammalia which accompanied the musk ox were the mammoth
and tichorhine rhinoceros, with the horse and ox;* but I can find no
record of the occurrence of a hippopotamus, nor of Elephas antiquus or
Rhinoceros leptorhinus, in the drift of the north of Germany, bordering
the Baltic.
(* "Leonhard and Bronn's Jahrbuch" 1836 page 215.)
On the other hand, in another locality in the same drift of North
Germany, Dr. Hensel, of Berlin, detected, near Quedlinburg, the
Norwegian Lemming (Myodes lemmus), and another species of the same
family called by Pallas Myodes torquatus (by Hensel, Misothermus
torquatus)--a still more arctic quadruped, found by Parry in latitude 82
degrees, and which never strays farther south than the northern borders
of the woody region. Professor Beyrich also informs me that the remains
of the Rhinoceros tichorhinus were obtained at the same place.*
(* "Zeitschrift der Deutschen Geologischen Gesellschaft"
volume 7 1855 page 497 etc.)
As an example of what may possibly have constituted a more southern
fauna in the valley of the Thames, I may allude to the fossil remains
found in the fluviatile alluvium of Gray's Thurrock, in Essex, situated
on the left bank of the river, 21 miles below London. The strata of
brick-earth, loam, and gravel exposed to view in artificial excavations
in that spot, are precisely such as would be formed by the silting up
of an old river channel. Among the mammalia are Elephas antiquus,
Rhinoceros leptorhinus (R. megarhinus, Christol), Hippopotamus major,
species of horse, bear, ox, stag, etc., and, among the accompanying
shells, Cyrena fluminalis, which is extremely abundant, instead of being
scarce, as at Abbeville. It is associated with Unio littoralis also in
great numbers and with both valves united. This conspicuous freshwater
mussel is no longer an inhabitant of the British Isles, but still
lives in the Seine, and is still more abundant in the Loire. Another
freshwater univalve (Paludina marginata, Michaud), not British, but
common in the south of France, likewise occurs, and a peculiar variety
of Cyclas amnica, which by some naturalists has been regarded as a
distinct species. With these, moreover, is found a peculiar variety of
Valvata piscinalis.
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