[429] I am well aware of the occasional existence of holes in the ribs, a few instances of which I have seen in the human subject: but they differ essentially in character from the opening here described, as they occupy the centre of the rib, mostly in its sternal extremity, and have their margin depressed on both sides.
[430] In A. W. Schlegel’s Contributions to the History of the Elephant, in the Indische Bibliothek, i. 2, are enumerated many facts not generally known regarding the African and Asiatic Elephants, and the details are accompanied with interesting inferences.
[431] According to Schleiermacher, Goldfuss and Von Bachr, fossil tusks, resembling those of the African Elephant, have been found in some districts. Cuvier, however, questions their being in a true fossil state.
[432] This plate forms the [frontispiece] to the present work.
[433] Sœmmering über die fossilien Knocken, welche in der Protogæa Von Leibnitz abgebildet sind: eine Abhandlung in der Magazin für die Naturgeschichte des Menschen von C. Grosse, iii. 1790, s. 73.
[434] Rosenmüller, Beschreib. des Höhlenbären, s. 2.
[435] Further information in regard to these caves will be found in Leonhard Taschenb. der Min. vii. 2. S. 439; and in Nöggerath’s Gebirge in Rheinland-Westphalen, ii. S. 27. and iii. 1. 13.
[436] In England and Wales the following caves have been found to contain fossil bones:
1. Cave in Duncombe Park, not far from that of Kirkdale. It contains only recent bones.
2. Cave of Hutton, a village in Somersetshire, at the foot of the Mendip Hills. Bones of elephants, horses, hogs, of two species of deer, of oxen, the nearly entire skeleton of a fox, and the metacarpal bone of a large bear, have been found in it.