305 Scientific NoticeS'-'ZooIogy. [APBtL, 



and although a most diligent search was made, no part of the 

 skeleton found ; within some hundred yards, in another, the 

 jaw-bones were found, and not the head. The conclusion which, 

 I conceive, may fairly be deduced from such a position of the 

 various parts of the animals is, that there must have been some 

 powerful agent employed in dispersing them after their death ; 

 and as I consider it impossible that their own gravity could have 

 been sufficient to sink them through the various strata, I conceive 

 these must have originated subsequently to the dispersion of the 

 bones. I also think, that if they had been exposed for any time 

 to atmospheric influence, they never could have been preserved 

 in their present extraordinary state of perfection. 



" The hills immediately adjoining this valley are composed of 

 limestone, with a covering of rich mould of various degrees of 

 thickness. One of them, the base of which is about thirty acres, 

 rises directly from the edge of the valley, with sides very preci- 

 pitous, and in one place perfectly perpendicular, of naked lime- 

 stone. In every part of this hill the superficies comprises as 

 much stone as mould ; on the side nearly opposite, the hill is 

 equally high, but the sides not so steep, and the covering of 

 mould thicker; on the other sides the ground only rises in some 

 degree (twenty or thirty feet perhaps) and consists of a thin 

 mould, and immediately under a vety hard limestone gravel. 

 Indeed, except where limestone forms the substratum, this is 

 the character of all the soil in the vicinity except the Corkases, 

 which are evidently alluvial. I am fully aware, that assuming 

 the destruction of the animals to have been occasioned by a 

 flood, they would naturally have retreated from the water to the 

 hills, and that, as they probably met their fate there, their 

 remains should have been discovered on the summit of the hills, 

 and not in the valley, particularly as one of them is perfectly 

 flat on the top, which contains six or seven acres. I apprehend 

 that the remains of many of them were deposited on the tops of 

 the hills, but as they have now only a slight covering of mould, 

 not sufficient to cover a small dog, they were formerly perfectly 

 bare; and as they were thus devoid of the means of protecting 

 the remains from the atmosphere, whatever was left there soon be- 

 came decomposed, and resolved into portions of the mould, which 

 is now to be found on the hills. This remark I conceive also to 

 be applicable to the soil with the substratum of limestone gravel, 

 which affords quite as little material for preserving the bones as 

 the hills do. It is material that I should observe that of ei^ht 

 heads, which we found, none were without antlers ; the variety 

 in chara,cter also was such as to induce me to imagine, that 

 possibly the females were not devoid of these appendages ; 

 unfortunately, however, from the difficulty of raising them, being 

 saturated with water, and as soft as wet brown paper, only three 

 were at all. perfect. Your's most truly, 



"William W, Maunsell." 



