498 FOSSIL ELK OF IRELAND. 



of this period, it had become as flexible as a recent bone 

 submitted to the action of the same solvent. The pe- 

 riosteum was in some parts puffed out by carbonic acid 

 gas, disengaged from the bone, and appeared to be in a 

 state of perfect soundness. 



" To a portion of the solution of the bone in the mu- 

 riatic acid some infusion of galls was added, which caus- 

 ed a copious precipitate of a dun colour. This proved 

 to be tannate of gelatine, mixed with a small portion of 

 the tannate and gallate of iron. 



" The cartilage and gelatine, therefore, so far from 

 being destroyed, had not been perceptibly altered by 

 time." 



Until Baron Cuvier published his account of these 

 remains *, they were generally believed to have belong- 

 ed to the same species as the moose deer or elk of North 

 America, an opinion which appears to have been first 

 advanced by Dr Thomas Molyneux in 1697-f, and 

 which depends principally on the exaggerated descrip- 

 tion of that animal given by Josselyn in his account of 

 two voyages to New England, published in 1674, in 

 which he states that it is sometimes twelve feet high, 

 with horns of two fathoms wide ! This was the more 

 readily believed by the learned Doctor, as it tended to 

 confirm him in a favourite theory which he seems to 

 have entertained, that Ireland had once been joined to 

 the New Continent. 



* Vide Annales du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, tome xii. et Os- 

 semens Fossiles, tome iv. 



f Philosophical Transactions, vol. xix. 



