By Mr. Cunnington. 141 



tively occur attached to the skull ; the larger number are the shed 

 horns which were annually dropped whilst the animals were alive : 

 the proportion of the horns being at the rate of about four or five 

 pairs to every skull. 



Fourth. — The bones of these extinct animals are never found 

 associated with the remains of man, or his works. This constitutes 

 a marked distinction between the Drift proper, and those more 

 recent deposits, forming the Alluvium of valleys and peat bogs, 

 which always overlie the gravels of which we have been speaking. 



The animal and vegetable remains found in lakes, rivers, and 

 bogs, and in the fossiliferous caves, would alone furnish ample 

 materials for a lengthened disquisition. 



It is well known to geologists that the world has been preparing 

 for the use of man during a vast number of ages — for so long a 

 period indeed, that our minds are incapable of appreciating its 

 duration. The mountains and hills which diversify and adorn the 

 earth's surface, have been built up almost grain by grain at the 

 bottom of ancient oceans, countless myriads of animated atoms 

 once living in those seas, having contributed their minute skeletons 

 to form what are now our highest mountains. Veins of the various 

 metals have been deposited in the rocks. Vegetation as luxuriant 

 as that of the tropics, once flourishing on our islands, has been 

 consolidated into coal, the source of our greatest comforts, and of 

 our greatest wealth. But these bare rocks would have been incap- 

 able of producing the rich crops of grain, which at this season of 

 the year, enrich and beautify our country. To constitute a good 

 soil, it is necessary tliat it sliould contain a considerable variety of 

 mineral ingredients. This final adaptation of the earth's surface to 

 the use of man, may with propriety be noticed in connexion with 

 our present topic of address, to which it legitimately bclono-s. 



During a long period subsequent to the Tertiary era, yet prior 

 to the creation of man, when lands now covered with rich crops 

 were submerged beneath the deep, the dihris of strata broken up by 

 the action of glaciers and icebergs were brought to our shores 

 and scattered over the surface. Added to this, the gradual wear- 

 ing away of the rocks by frosts and rains, the action of the sea 



