THE ANTLERS. 227 



was the first deposit after the icebergs had ceased to drift, and 

 the denuding process was finished, these antlers were found, in 

 positions showing beyond doubt that they were drifted in with 

 the gravel. They were not found together but at considerable 

 distances apart, and are from different animals. In the same 

 vein of gravel are found a considerable variety of fossil woods ; 

 several specimens of which I have submitted to the inspection of 

 the learned professor, Leo Lasquereaux, who, forty years ago, 

 examined the peat-beds of Denmark, and distinguished the suc- 

 cessive generations of trees there deposited, which had grown, 

 flourished, decayed, and disappeared, leaving only that decayed 

 record of their having once existed in a land where for unknown 

 ages they have been entire strangers. These he finds to be arbo- 

 rescent conifers which are not now found nearer than the regions 

 of Lake Superior, and oaks which are now flourishing here but 

 are not s^'owino; there. 



Two of these fossil antlers exhibit all the peculiar characteris- 

 tics of the antlers of the Virginia Deer now inhabiting this coun- 

 try in the most pronounced form : one from a fully adult animal 

 and the other about four years old. They had both been 

 dropped in the course of nature. The other presents but about 

 six inches of the lower part of the beam and before any of the 

 tines had occurred, and so it may not be identified with certainty. 

 The basal snag is rudimentar}^ and the beam is straighter than is 

 usual on the Virginia Deer. And in these respects it resembles 

 the exceptional form of the antler of the mule deer and the 

 Columbia deer, but it is not safe to declare that it did grow on 

 a deer of one of these species. 



In the same locality and at the same depth, in a pocket of 

 clay deposited in the lower stratum of gravel, I found nearly the 

 entire skeleton of a female Virginia deer. With great pains I 

 have compared tliese bones individually with the bones of a fully 

 adult female Common Deer that died in my grounds, and can 

 discover no appreciable difference in size or form. They are as 

 nearly identical as possible throughout. These were evidently 

 deposited at a later period than were the antlers. 



We learn from those relics that our Common Deer was nil in- 

 habitant of our elevated plains or at least of a region north of 

 us, soon after the waters left them and while this great valley 

 from a mile and a half to two miles wide and more than one 

 hundred feet deep was yet filled with the great current which 

 swept down from the north and brought with it and deposited 



