315 



pieces of calcareous spar of a darkish brown colour ; and 

 which having been long exposed to the action of water, 

 have become enveloped and cemented together by stalag- 

 mitic depositions. Sometimes the spathose matter is colour- 

 less, and, at other times, of a yellowish and reddish brick 

 colour. The concreted masses resemble each other in their 

 colour and composition in most of the places in which they 

 are found, except in the Vencentin and Veronese, and at 

 Concud, where their cementing matter is of a much lighter 

 colour. Some of these bones have been found at fifty-seven 

 feet above high-water mark. 



It was long believed that many of these bones were 

 human : of this opinion, at one time, was Abbe Fortis, and 

 even Mr. John Hunter ; but it is now ascertained that they 

 are not so, and that they belong chiefly to quadrupeds. 

 Cuvier believes all those which he examined to be the bones 

 of ruminants, hardly the size of a deer ; and from no horns 

 or branches being found, and from appearances yielded by 

 some of the bones, he is disposed to refer them to the 

 antelope. This friend to science found, in the breccia of 

 Cette, the bones of the common wild rabbit ; of another 

 rabbit, one-third smaller ; of a field mouse ; of a bird of the 

 size of the common wagtail ; and of the common adder. 

 At Nice and Antibes, the remains of horses and of rumi- 

 nating animals, of the calf and the stag, were found. In the 

 breccia of Corsica, bones belonging to rosores only were 

 found, resembling those of the rabbit, guinea-pig, or rat : 

 an enormous quantity of the bones of the water-rat, and, 

 perhaps, of the land-mouse (?nus terrestris, Linn.) was also 

 found in this breccia. The head of an animal of the genus 

 lagomys, Cuv., was also found here, but which did not agree 

 in size or proportions with any known species. From the 

 accounts which he collected, as well as from his own obser- 

 vation, Cuvier concludes, that the phenomena respecting 

 these bones point them out as posterior to the last resting 



