4 Rev. W.V. Vernon's Further Examination of the Deposit 



des OS de boeuf ou de buffle, qui ont accompagne les elephans, 

 les rhinoceros lorsq'ils vivoient dans nos climats et Ton com- 

 prend aisement quelles consequences on deduiroit d'un tel fait 

 aussitot qu'il seroit bien etabli. Malheureusement il reste en- 

 core plusieurs sources d'incertitudes ; il n'est pas toujours 

 facile de determiner une espece d'apres les os des extremites, 

 lorsque Ton n'a pas son crane." Tiie most skilful of compa- 

 rative anatomists was not able to distinguish the species of 

 this genus with certainty but by the peculiarities of the cra- 

 nium, and no cranium had yet been discovered with the bones 

 of the extinct elephant, rhinoceros, and lion. 



The consequences alluded to in the foregoing passage fol- 

 low from the consideration of the different climates wliich the 

 different species of tlie ox inhabit in their natural state : the 

 buffiilo is naturally an inhabitant only of the tropics; the ox 

 or urus and the aurochs or bison are, and always have been, as 

 far as thehistory of animals extends, natives of a cold or tem- 

 perate climate. If therefore it is the bison, the remains of 

 which are found with those of the extinct species of elephant, 

 it is to be presumed that the latter animal also was a native of 

 such a climate, and by consequence that the temperatureof 

 these latitudes has undergone little alteration since the re- 

 mains in question were inhumed. 



To this conclusion 1 think myself intitled to come, from the 

 discovery in the present instance of a bison's head beneath 

 the remains of the elephant and rhinoceros ; and I consider 

 such a conclusion confirmed in the highest degree by the si- 

 tuation where it is shown by the table, that those land- and 

 fresh-water shells were found which have been so fully identi- 

 fied with species and varieties now existing in this country. 

 These shells, twelve in number, to which Mr. Phillips has 

 since added a.\\o\.\\ev {F. spirorhis\\\YO\e(\ to be embedded with 

 the bones to the very bottom of the black marl ; but in the 

 upper gray marl not a trace of them was to be seen: so far are 

 they from being of recent deposition, that they are not even 

 mixed with but distinctly covered by unequivocal relics of 

 diluvian action. 



But I am anticipating the second point to which I stated that 

 my inquiries were directed; namel}', the question whether any 

 part of this deposit had been formed by a sediment from tran- 

 quil waters. 



Now as far as this examination went, it proved that for the 

 first seventeen feet from the stratified red marl upwards, not 

 a pebble had been deposited which might not have been 

 brought by the tides of the Humber, or the influx of streams 

 from the near adjoining hills. Tiie black marl exhibited all 



the 



