16 NOTES ON THE REMAINS OF PLEISTOCENE MAMMALS
himself in unavailing struggles to get out when he found himself'
carried away by the torrent. Similarly, no doubt, perished the
elephants mentioned by Sir Samuel Baker in his Nile Tributaries of
Abyssinia (Chap. VIII.) where we find the following remarks :
" August 19. A dead elephant floated down the river to-day: this is the
second that has passed within the last few days ; they have been most probably
drowned in attempting to cross some powerful torrent tributary to the Atbara."
Of the wild elephant of Ceylon, and his love of water, Sir J.
Emerson Tennent remarks that "no altitude, in fact, seems too lofty
or too chill for the elephant, provided it affords the luxury of water
in abundance." We have no reason to suppose that the Mammoth
had less love of water than the elephants of Africa and India of the
present day.
And it is evident that when we consider the great distance to
which existing elephants can swim, the mere breadth of the Atbara
or the Chelmer, or of some far mightier river than either, would con-
stitute no danger in itself to one of the most buoyant of all
quadrupeds. On the other hand, the immense weight of the
Mammoth, or of any other kind of elephant, would often make its
emergence from a flooded stream with banks of soft material, a very
difficult, or even impossible task.
To this difficulty we doubtless owe the appearance of the dead
elephants in the Atbara, and of the Mammoth in the ancient river-
deposits of Chelmsford.
NOTES ON THE REMAINS OF PLEISTOCENE
MAMMALS FOUND IN THE
NEIGHBOURHOOD OF CHELMSFORD.
By E. T. NEWTON, F R.S., F.G.S.
[Read March 9th, 1895.]
SO few remains of Pleistocene Mammals have hitherto been
recorded from the Chelmsford district that additional
information concerning them is much to be desired. Cer-
tain specimens have recently come into the possession of the
Essex Field Club for their Museum, from a brick-pit close to
the Railway, where the section is exposed which has just been
described by my friend and former colleague on the Geological
Survey, Mr. T. V. Holmes, and it has been thought well to give
some account of these interesting fossils.