NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
103
of which is about on a level with the shingle of the beach. The
river is, at this point, about two miles wide.
At the spot in question, we found a number of bones, in a
very fragmentary condition, lying about at the base of the cliff,
having been disturbed by some previous visitor, and these we
brought away. Others, chiefly limb-bones, lay imbedded in the
surface of the stiff clay, having clearly been freshly uncovered
by a recent high tide. These, though extremely soft and friable,
were almost perfect, but it was obvious that they were suffering
from later tides having washed shingle and sand backwards and
forwards over them, thus causing their exposed portions to
become abraded. We had no proper appliances for digging
these bones out of the clay and they broke to fragments when we
attempted to pull them out. We had, therefore, to leave them.
We exhibited the fragments we brought away at a meeting
of the Club on the 20th April, 1907, when Mr. E. T. Newton,
F.R.S., who saw them, expressed his belief that they were
those of the Mammoth (Elephas primigenius).
At the time Mr. Wilmer and I found these bones, we
thought that we had made an original discovery ; but I have
since learned that similar bones were discovered at or near the
same spot rather more than two centuries ago. Mr. John
Luffkin, writing from Colchester on 15th September 1701,
mentions (Philos. Trans., vol. xxii., pp. 924—926 [no. 274],
1701) the finding, "this summer," at Wrabness,
" diverse bones of an extraordinary bigness, which were found at fifteen or
sixteen foot beneath the service of the earth, in digging for gravel to mend the
roads with, etc. ; the largest and most remarkable of which was procured and
sent to me by the learned and ingenious Mr. Rich, Minister of the place."
Mr. Luffkin concludes with the surmise that the bones in
question were those of elephants brought over by the Emperor
Claudius for use in his wars with the Britons !
Moreover, our member, Mr. Walter B. Nichols, of Stour
Lodge, Bradfield (who lives little more than a mile from the
spot), has ascertained that several residents in the vicinity had
noticed the bones on the beach before we did. The first dis-
covery appears to have been made in May 1906, after a high
tide, which led to a fall of earth from the cliff. At this time, a
youth named Young, of Wrabness, found a number of fragments,
including a couple of molar teeth ; but the find was soon