Abstract
To the exhibition galleries of the British Museum (Natural History have recently been added two exhibits of exceptional interest, both concerned with the elephant family but otherwise quite different. In the Ralæontological Gallery has been erected the hug skeleton of the great fossil elephant which was brdught to light by a party of Royal Engineers when digging practice trenches by the Medway opposite Chatham Dockyard about 1911. The importance of the bones that had been dug up was, however, not realised until 1913, when Mr. S. Turner sent some of the bones to the Natxiral History Museum for identification. Efforts were then made to secure the whole of the skeleton that remained, and Mr. L. E. Parsons, under the supervision of the late Dr. C. W. Andrews, spent several months at Upnor carefully excavating and packing the specimens for removal to the Museum. Further work was necessarily prevented by the War, and afterwards progress was gravely hindered by the death of Dr. Andrews. Fortunately, Mr. C. Forster Cooper, of Cambridge, a well-known authority on this group of fossils, lent his aid, and Dr. W. Rushton Parker generously defrayed the heavy cost of the ironwork fitting. Finally, in spite of the difficult times, money was found for the base and the rail, and at last, after fourteen years, the public arc enabled to see the remains of this huge creature, which stood over 12 feet high.
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News and Views. Nature 120, 162–166 (1927). https://doi.org/10.1038/120162a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/120162a0