308 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



be felt that a suo-o-estion, so novel and so much at variance with hith- 



oO * 



erto established facts and recognized ideas in geology, is not to be 

 received without great hesitation, nor until further investigations shall 

 have thrown more light upon the subject than is afforded by the pre- 

 ceding observations and experiments. 



GEOLOGY OF THE SHEEP. 



THE recent progress of palaeontology adds a new element to the 

 elucidation of this question, which was so ably discussed by Buffon 

 and the naturalists of the last century. At present, however, the 

 evidence which palaeontology yields is of the negative kind. No 

 unequivocal fossil remains of the sheep have yet been found in the 

 bone caves, the drift, or the more tranquil stratified newer pliocene 

 deposites, so associated with the fossil bones of oxen, wild-boar, wolves, 

 foxes, otters, &c., as to indicate the coevality of the sheep with those 

 species, or in such an altered state as to indicate them to have been of 

 equal antiquity. I have had my attention particularly directed to this 

 point, in collecting evidence for a history of British Fossil Mamnalia. 

 Whenever the truly characteristic parts, viz., the bony cores of the 

 horns, have been found associated with jaws, teeth, and other parts of 

 the skeleton of a ruminant, corresponding in size and other characters 

 with those of the goat and sheep, in the formations of the newer 

 pliocene period, such supports of the horns have proved to be those of 

 the goat. No fossil core-horns of the sheep have yet been any where 

 discovered ; and so far as this negative evidence goes, we may infer that 

 the sheep is not geologically more ancient than man ; that it is not a 

 native of Europe, but has been introduced by the tribes who car- 

 ried hither the germs of civilization in their migrations westward from 

 Asia. Prof. Owen. 



ARTIC FOSSILS FROM ESCHSCHOLTZ BAY. 



IN 1816, Kotzebue, in the course of his voyage round the world, 

 visited a J3ay situated a short way southwards of the Arctic circle, 

 which afterwards excited great interest on account of the remarkable 

 character of the cliffs by which it was surrounded. This bay was 

 named after Eschscholtz, one of the naturalists of the Russian Expe- 

 dition. The cliffs were described as consisting entirely of masses of 

 ice, covered by the soil in which flourished an Arctic vegetation. To 

 add to the interest which such an account was likely to create, it was 

 stated that the cliffs abounded with the remains of mammoths, horses, 

 oxen, and reindeer. This remarkable bay was visited by Capt. 

 Beechey in conjunction with Mr. Collie in the year 1836 : their at- 

 tention was directed to these iceberg cliffs ; but, on digging into them, 

 they came to the conclusion that the cliff was composed of mud and 

 gravel in a frozen state, and that the ice formed only a casing above 

 it. In the recent voyage of H. M. S. Herald, under the command of 

 Capt. Kellett, this district was again visited ; and this intelligent com- 



