286 THEORY OF THE EARTH. 



very little from what it is at present ; but we are 

 certain of several species which were different. 



This may, in particular, be said with much 

 certainty of a deer exceeding even the elk in size, 

 which is common in the marl deposits and peat- 

 bogs of Ireland and England, and of which re- 

 mains have also been dug up in France, Ger- 

 many, and Italy, where they were found in the 

 same strata with bones of elephants. Its wide, 

 palmated, and branched horns, measure so much 

 as twelve or fourteen feet from one point to the 

 other, following the curvatures *. 



The distinction is not so clear with regard to 

 the bones of deer and oxen, which have been 

 collected in certain caverns, and in the fissures of 

 certain rocks. They are sometimes, and espe- 

 cially in the caverns of England, accompanied 

 with bones of elephants, rhinoceroses, and hippo- 

 potami, and with those of a hyena, which also 

 occurs in several strata of transported matter, 

 along with these same pachydermata. They are 

 consequently of the same age ; but it remains not 

 the less difficult to say in what respect they dif- 

 fer from the oxen and deer of the present day. 



The fissures of the rocks of Gibraltar, Cette, 

 Nice, Uliveta near Pisa, and other places on the 



See my " Researches/' vol. iv. p. 70. 



