FOSSIL ELK OF IRELAND. 491 



limestone forms the substratum, this is the character of 

 all the soil in the vicinity except the Corkasses, 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 disco- 

 vered 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 re- 

 mark 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 eight 

 heads which we found, none were without antlers ; the 

 variety in character 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. 



Having now disposed of these antediluvians, a ques- 

 tion naturally arises, how it happens that the fossil re- 

 mains of no other animals were found, when the same 



