LXIL On the Odour exhaled from certain Organic Remains 

 in the Diluvium of the Arctic Circle, as confirmatory o/~Dr. 

 Buckland's Opinion of a sudden Change of Climate at the 

 Period of Destruction of the Animals to which they belonged; 

 and on the Probability that one of the Fossil Bones, brought 

 from Eschscholtz Bay, by Captain Beecbey, belonged to a 

 Species ^Megatherium. By E. W. BRAYLEY Jim., A.L.S., 

 Teacher of the Physical Sciences in the Schools ofHazelwood 

 and Bruce Castle. 



T N Dr. Buckland's very interesting and important article 

 * on the occurrence of me remains of elephants, &c., in the 

 cliffs of frozen mud in Eschscholtz Bay, &c. which forms part 

 of the Appendix to Capt. Beechey's Narrative of his Voyage 

 to the Pacific and Beering's Strait, a strong odour of decom- 

 posing animal matter which is exhaled from some of the loca- 

 lities in which those remains are found, is noticed several 

 times. Thus, in the notes extracted from the Journal of Mr. 

 Collie, the surgeon to the Expedition, it is stated that " a very 

 strong odour, like that of heated bones, was exhaled wherever 

 the fossils abounded." In the extract from Capt. Kotzebue's 

 account of the same spot it is observed, " We could not as- 

 sign any reason for a strong smell, like that of burnt horn, 

 which we perceived in this place." And " other observers," 

 Dr. Buckland remarks, " have stated the same thing of the 

 mud cliffs in Siberia, near the mouth of the Lena, which con- 

 tain similar organic remains." (Beechey's Narrative, Appen- 

 dix, pp.599, 601, 604.) 



The odour emitted by burning bones and horn arises from 

 the development of ammonia, mingled or combined with vo- 

 latile animal substances, ensuing from the decomposition, 

 by the heat, of the gelatine, &c. of the bodies subjected to it. 

 Any decomposition of animal matter, however effected, in 

 which ammonia was evolved in considerable proportion, 

 would produce a similar smell; which may be attributed, in 

 the instances before us, to one of the two following causes, or 

 perhaps to both causes combined. 



1st. The intense cold which froze into a mass the diluvium 

 of the Polar Sea and its organic remains, would necessarily 

 arrest the decomposition of many animal combinations in those 

 remains, as well as reduce to a fixed form the volatilizable 

 principles they contained. By this means, the evolution of 

 volatile matters would be prevented, and others would be 

 preserved, which, had the animal remains been exposed to 

 such temperatures as now prevail either in the torrid or in the 

 temperate zone, would have escaped in the volatile form, by 

 the ordinary process of putrefaction. But in the summer, from 

 June to October, as we find from Capt. Beechey's Meteorologi- 



3 G 2 cal 



