352 On some Quadrupeds supposed to be extinct. 



are such as cannot be observed or registered ; and a few lines 

 will prove how difficult and uncertain this part of the question 

 remains to this day. 



** In quarrying limestone at Aix, in Provence, a. d. 1788, 

 under eleven strata, separated from each other by a bed of 

 sand and clay, at the depth of forty-five feet, the surface was 

 covered with shells. The stones of this bed being removed, 

 under a stratum of argillaceous sand, stumps of columns and 

 fragments of stones, like the quarry, half wrought, were found ; 

 and also coins, handles of hammers, and a board, one inch 

 thick and seven feet long, broken, but all the pieces there, and 

 could be joined ; it was like the boards used by quarry-men, 

 and worn in the same manner. The pieces of wood Avere 

 changed into agate ^." 



*' On sinking a well on a hill near Tobolsk, sixty-four 

 fathoms deep in the earth, an oaken beam was found ; it was 

 quite black, and not round but shaped f." 



*' At Watlington-park, Oxfordshire, at fifty or sixty feet 

 depth, many whole oaks, hazel-nuts, a stag's-head and antlers, 

 were found, and on the same spot two Roman urns J." 



*' In Oxfordshire there is a tumulus which has become a 

 perfect mount of stone." 



" Ralph, the brother of Earl Widdrington, showed me many 

 human bones taken from whole skeletons, with British beads, 

 chains, iron rings, and brass bits of bridles, dug up in a 

 quarry at Blankney, Lincolnshire, which was probably plain 

 mould when these old corpses of the Britons were interred : 

 and I saw many human bones and armour, with Roman coins, 

 fibulae, &c., found in a stone-ipit in Hunstan ton-park, Norfolk, 

 belonging to Sir Nicholas L'Estrange §." 



Very numerous instances could be added, in order to prove 

 that the local circumstances, when skeletons of these quadru- 

 peds are found, are not of a nature to disprove the historical 

 origin of fossil bones. From the highest authority we learn, 

 that the *' bones of species which are apparently the same with 



* Count Bounion ; Phil. Mag., vol. Ivii., p. 458. 



t Strahlenbera:, p. 405. 



$ Dr. Plotrs History of Oxf.,' p. 161. 



§ Phil. Trans. Abridged, vol. iv., part ii., p. 273. 



