252 THE WORLD'S LUMBER ROOM. 



case animal remains are abundant. At times they may 

 be covered by the mud and sand of inundations, at others 

 by the sand which drifts in from the sea-shore, and at 

 times animals are overwhelmed by landslips, or lost, and 

 that in considerable numbers, in bogs and swamps, while 

 in limestone districts they fall into fissures or wander into 

 caverns, where their bones may be covered with a crust 

 of stalagmite. 



Mammal remains are most abundant in the sites of 

 lakes into which the animals were, no doubt, carried by 

 flooded rivers. 



Sheep and cattle are often washed away even in 

 England in the spring-time, and where rivers are larger 

 snowfalls heavier, and changes of temperature more sudden, 

 large numbers perish at times, and may be carried away 

 to lakes, estuaries, or even the sea. 



During the great drought in the Pampas several 

 hundred thousand animals rushed into the river Parana, 

 and perished from lack of strength to crawl up the 

 muddy banks again. More than once the carcases of 

 above a thousand wild horses were seen together, and, as 

 floods followed, large numbers of skeletons were probably 

 buried in mud. 



Many animals seem to choose spots to which they 

 retire to die. On the banks of the Santa Cruz there 

 are places which are white with the bones of the guanaco; 

 at St. Jago there is a retired corner, to which the goats 

 betake themselves; and every one remembers the elephants' 

 cemetery in Ceylon, to which Sindbad was conveyed. 



A dead elephant is never seen in that island, nor are 



