EEMAEKS ON THE EEINDEEE AND HIPPOPOTAMUS. 157 



must have resulted in some cases assuming the appearance of order, as the 

 concurrence of eddies might have favoured the collocation in certain deposits of 

 objects of nearly the same specific gravity. Successive inundations, and at more 

 recent periods the action of great land-floods, the effects of local disturbances, 

 would tend further to account for a collocation so far accidental; and thus 

 remains, separated in their origin by wide intervals of time, might be found 

 together in deposits, undistinguishable as to their relative eras of existence by any 

 ordinary process of reasoning. Nor is the agency of Man, where vestiges of his 

 existence may appear in proximity, to be disregarded. Primitive races, such as 

 the Aquitanian Cave-men, would readily adopt as their occasional dwellings those 

 excavations which in many cases had received the accidental deposit of ancient 

 remains the previous or subsequent haunts, perhaps, of various species of beasts 

 then still existing, though now extinct. Or, impelled by superstitious reverence (no 

 unfertile motive of action even among the rudest races), they might have conveyed 

 to their retreats, as memorials, the casually developed relics of the gigantic mam- 

 mals whose nature was to them a mystery. Or again, portions of such remains, 

 when accidentally discovered, like the fossil ivory of the present day, might have 

 been employed by them for artificial purposes. All these are suppositions, not 

 susceptible indeed of proof, but compatible at least with probability. 



From such considerations, joined to the experience which my own opportunities 

 of observation have afforded, while deferring much to the opinions that have been 

 expressed by various writers on this subject, I cannot but regard the argument 

 derived from the mere collocation of varied remains in diluvial deposits, unsup- 

 ported by the probabilities of other evidence, as apt to lead to very erroneous 

 conclusions*. 



I will not enter upon the many reasons that afford me ground for this opinion ; yet I may mention one 

 case which bears upon the question. In the summer of 1855, while engaged in a hasty tour to the verge 

 of the Eocky Mountains, I stopped, in passing, at the Hudson's Bay Company's post at Walla- Walla. Fort 

 Nez-Perces, the station in question, is situated in what, under the Oregon Treaty of 1846, became American 

 territory the rights of occupation, together with that of other posts similarly circumstanced, having since 

 the period I speak of been ceded, under purchase, to the United-States Government. The position of this 



* I notice that allusion is made, in a foot-note at page 60, to an account of the remains of a Mastodon 

 found in Missouri in connexion with evidences of the contemporaneous residence of Man. I have never 

 met with this account, and of course do not pretend in any way to question the conclusions arrived at. In 

 fact I am myself disposed to think, both from evidences that appear and from the faint and fallible echoes 

 of native traditions, that the existence of that animal in America may be reconciled with a comparatively 

 modern date in the world's history. Still I am always inclined in such cases to accept with great caution 

 the conclusions of observers, and to admit them only under the most cogent evidence. 



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