311 



size will prevent the supposition from being admitted, that it may be the 

 tooth of some young animal of the genus Elephas, 



In the family Solipedes, one genus (Equus) only can be placed, having 

 only one toe and one hoof. 



The remains of the horse are only found in the looser alluvial depo- 

 sitions. I recollect no instance, in this island, in which its remains have 

 been found imbedded in chemical depositions, which possess a stony 

 hardness. Thus its remains are frequently found in peat-beds, in gravel, 

 loam, &c. but not to my recollection, in limestone. From the strata in 

 which they exist being frequently contiguous to the surface, these re- 

 mains are often turned up with the plough; seldom exciting much no- 

 tice, from their not being considered otherwise than as the remains of 

 animals of but late existence. This notion has of course derived consi- 

 derable support from the circumstance of these teeth, bones, &c. not dif- 

 fering from the living species of the present day. 



Although so exactly agreeing with those of the present species, the 

 teeth and bones of the horse are often found mingled with the bones of 

 those animals which must have existed at a very distant aera, and even 

 sometimes with the remains of those animals which are now unknown to 

 us. Thus I have met with them, in this country, in the same stratum 

 which has yielded the bones of the great Irish elk, of the elephant, rhi- 

 noceros, and hippopotamus, and perhaps of the mammoth. Cuvier him- 

 self saw hundreds of the teeth and bones of horses taken from the canal 

 ofOurcq, mixed with those of elephants; some of the former being really 

 petrified. At Canstadt, in Wirtemberg, they are found in prodigious 

 numbers, with the bones of elephants, tigers, rhinoceroses, and hyenas: 

 .they have also been found, thus associated, in Italy, in different parts of 

 Fr-ince; and in many of those beds, in other parts of the world, in which 

 elephantine remains have been found. This, as is justly observed by 

 M. Cuvier, is deservedly interesting; since, from the remains of the ani- 

 mals with which they are associated, it is probable that they lived before 

 our continents existed in their present state. 



