The Sivalik explorations soon attracted attention in Europe, and in 1837 the Wollaston Medal, in duplicate, was awarded for their discoveries to Dr. Falconer and Captain Cautley by the Geological Society, the fountain of geological honours in England; while the value of the distinction was enhanced by the terms in which the President, Sir Charles Lyell, was pleased to announce the award. This is what he said: "When Captain Cautley and Dr. Falconer first discovered these remarkable remains, their curiosity was awakened, and they felt convinced of their great scientific value; but they were not versed in fossil osteology [the study of bones], and, being stationed on the remote confines of our Indian possessions, they were far distant from any living authorities or books on comparative anatomy to which they could refer. The manner in which they overcame these disadvantages, and the enthusiasm with which they continued for years to prosecute their researches, when thus isolated from the scientific world, are truly admirable. Dr. Royle has permitted me to read a part of their correspondence with him, when they were exploring the Sivalik Mountains, and I can bear witness to their extraordinary energy and perseverance. From time to time they earnestly requested that Cuvier’s works might be sent out to them, and expressed their disappointment when, from various accidents, these volumes failed to arrive. The delay, perhaps, was fortunate; for, being thrown entirely upon their own resources, they soon found a museum of comparative anatomy in the surrounding plains, hills, and jungles, where they slew the wild tigers, buffaloes, antelopes, and other Indian quadrupeds, of which they preserved the skeletons, besides obtaining specimens of all the reptiles which inhabited that region. They were compelled to see and think for themselves, while comparing and discriminating the different recent and fossil bones, and reasoning on the laws of comparative osteology, till at length they were fully prepared to appreciate the lessons which they were taught by the works of Cuvier."
In 1840 Captain Cautley presented his vast collection, the result of ten years' unremitting labour and great personal outlay, to the British Museum, the Geological Society having declined to accept it, as it was beyond their means of accommodation. Its extent and value may be estimated from the fact that it filled 214 large chests, the average weight of each of which amounted to 4 cwt., and that the charges on its transmission to England alone, which were defrayed by the Government of India, amounted to £602. Dr. Falconer’s selected collection was divided between the India House and the British Museum; the greater part was presented to the former, but a large number of unique or choice specimens, required to fill up blanks, were presented to the latter. The greater part of the specimens in the British Museum were still unarranged and embedded in their matrix. In 1844 a memorial was presented to the Court of Directors of the Honourable East India Company, pointing out the desirability of having the specimens in the national collection prepared, arranged, and displayed, and also of publishing an illustrated work, which would convey to men of science in both hemispheres a knowledge of the contents of the Sivalik Hills, and suggesting Dr. Falconer as the person most fitted to superintend the work. The Government of the time, under Sir Robert Peel, made a grant of £1000 to enable the collection to be exhibited in the British Museum, and Dr. Falconer was entrusted with the work. Besides this, a large illustrated work, entitled Fauna Antiqua Sivalensis, was begun, but owing to the demands upon Dr. Falconer’s time, and his subsequent death, this work was not completed, although nine out of the twelve parts originally contemplated were finished. The great Indian collection of fossils, mainly the gift of Sir Proby Cautley (the specimens of which, stupendous in their size, and in fine preservation, were prepared, identified, and arranged by Dr. Falconer), has long constituted one of the chief ornaments of the collection at the British Museum—now removed to the Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, South Kensington.
Other collections of fossils from the Sivalik Hills have been presented to the Museum of Edinburgh University by Colonel Colvin, and to the Oxford University by Mr. Walter Ewer. When it is remembered that these collections have since been increased tenfold, and that the remains were either excavated or found in the débris of cliffs, and that the explored surface bears a very small proportion to that which has not yet been investigated, one may conceive how prodigious must have been the number of animals that lived together in the former plains of India, even when every allowance is made for the bones having accumulated during many successive generations in the Sivalik strata.
From this large and important collection we select two of special interest for brief notice here, namely, the Sivatherium,[44] and an immense tortoise known as the Colossochelys.
[44] From Siva, the Hindoo god; and Greek, therion, a beast.
The first of these monsters was a remarkable form of animal, unlike anything living. In size it surpassed the largest rhinoceros, and was bigger than any living ruminant. Altogether, it was one of the most remarkable forms of life yet detected in the more recent strata. It had two pairs of horns on its head—two short and quite simple ones in front, and two larger ones, more or less expanded, behind them. From the character of these long horn-cores, which are prolongations of the skull, it may be concluded that the Sivatherium was a gigantic ruminant with four horns. A cast of the original skull, with the horn-cores restored from actual parts, in the collection and elsewhere, has been placed on a stand in the centre of the long gallery of fossil vertebrates at South Kensington (Stand I) near to the case containing the skull and other portions of the skeleton (see [Fig. 46]). There is also hanging on the wall near, a clever painting by Berjeau, representing the creature as it may have appeared when alive. The entire skeleton, partly restored, is shown in [Fig. 47], with a conjectural outline of the body. A hornless skull of a nearly allied animal from the same strata and locality is placed with that of the Sivatherium, and was considered by Dr. Falconer and others to be the skull of the hornless female (also represented as such in the above picture referred to); but is now, by more recent writers, regarded as a separate genus, viz. the Helladotherium, so named because the remains were first discovered at Pikermi, near Athens, Greece (ancient Hellas). (See [Plate XVI.])
Fig. 46.—Skull of Sivatherium giganteum, from the Sivalik Hills, Northern India.