252 Dr Mantell's Illustrations of the Connexion 



for a considerable time ; such an effect, indeed, as would be 

 produced by the head of an arrow or a spear.* 



Human bones have likewise been found associated with 

 the remains of the extinct gigantic wingless birds (the Moa 

 or Dinornis) of New Zealand, under circumstances that 

 appear to leave no doubt of their having been contempo- 

 raneous;! but as the extinction of this family of colossal 

 bipeds, like that of the Dodo, probably took place but a few 

 centuries ago, those remains of man and works of art that are 

 associated with the skeletons of the Irish Elk, may be regarded 

 as by far the most ancient vestiges of the human race hitherto 

 discovered. For although Indian arrow heads and pottery 

 have been dug up from the alluvial clay containing the bones 

 of Mastodons, in the United States of North America, yet 

 the evidence on this point is not conclusive. The same 

 remark applies to the account of human crania having been 

 found in the ossiferous caves of the Brazils, and with bones 

 of the extinct gigantic Edentata of the Pampas. 



IV. — On the Probability of discovering traces of the Human Race 

 in the ancient Tertiary Formations. 

 The facts brought forward in the course of this argument, 

 demonstrate the existence of man at that remote period when 

 the Irish Elk, and other extinct species and genera of ter- 

 restrial mammalia, whose remains occur in the superficial 

 alluvial deposits, inhabited the countries of Europe ; and as 

 the Irish Elk was contemporaneous with the Mastodon, 

 Mammoth, and the Carnivora of the caverns, it seems not 

 improbable that sooner or later human remains may be dis- 

 covered coeval with the bones of those animals. The question 

 therefore naturally arises, whether the evidence at present 

 obtained warrants the inference that traces of man's existence 



* A species of Ox {Bos longifrons) now extinct, was unquestionably an inha- 

 bitant of Britain during the Roman period, for its horns and bones have been 

 found in several places associated with Roman remains ; as at Colchester in 

 1849. — Vide Archasological Journal. 



t By Mr Walter Man tell, of Wellington. See a Memoir on the Fossil Birds 

 of New Zealand, Geological Quarterly .Journal, 1840 and 1850; and Pictorial 

 Atlas of Organic Remains, Art. Fossil Birds of New Zealand, 1850. 



