158 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO \6q7. 



by one Mr. Van Delure in the county of Clare, buried 10 feet under ground in 

 a sort of marl. And in the year 169I, Major Folliot told me, that digging 

 for marl near the town Ballymackward, not far from Baltyshannon in the county 

 of Fermanagh, he found buried, 10 feet under plain solid ground, a pair of this 

 sort of horns, which he keeps still in his possession. In the year l684, two of 

 these heads were dug up near Turvy, within 8 miles of Dublin. Not long 

 since, a head of this kind, with its hi)rns, was found near Portumnv, the house 

 of the Earls of Cianricard, seated on the river Shannon, in the county of 

 Gallway. And to my knowledge, within less than 20 years, above 20, I ^might 

 safely say 30, pair of such horns have been dug up in several places of this 

 country, all found by accident ; and we may well suppose vast numbers still re- 

 main undiscovered ; so that doubtless this creature was formerly common in 

 Ireland, and an indigenous animal, not |)eculiar to any territory or province, 

 but universally met with in all parts of the kingdom. We may also reasonably 

 gather, that they were not only common in this country, but that they were 

 a gregarious animal, or such a sort of creature as afi'ect iiaturallv keep- 

 ing together in herds ; several of these heads being found within a small 

 compass. 



That these heads should be constantly found buried in a sort of marl, seem.s 

 to intimate, as if marl was only a soil that had been formerly the outward sur- 

 face of the earth, but in process of time, being covered by degrees with many 

 layers of adventitious earth, has by lying underground a certain number of ages, 

 acquired a peculiar texture, consistence, ricliness, or maturity, that gives it the 

 name of marl ; for we must needs allow that the place where these heads are 

 now found, was certainly once the external superficies of the ground ; otherwise 

 it is hardly possible to conceive how they should come there. And that they 

 should be so deep buried, as we at present find them, appears to have happened 

 by their accidentally falling where it was soft low ground ; so that the horns, by 

 their own considerable gravity, might easily make a bed, where they settled in 

 the yielding earth ; and in a very long course of time, the higher lands being 

 by degrees dissolved by repeated rains, and washed anrl brought down by floods, 

 covered those places that were situated lower with many layers of earth : for all 

 high grounds and hills, unless they consist of rock, by this means naturally lose 

 a little every year of their height ; and sometimes sensibly become lower even 

 in one age. 



How this kind of animals, lormerly so common and numerous in this coun- 

 try, should now become utterly lost and extinct, deserves our consideration. 

 Some have been ai)t to imagine that they were destroyed by the deluge in 

 Noah's time. But it is not probable that such a slight arid porous substance as 



