VOL. XIX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. J 5Q 



these horns could be preserved entire from the time of that flood. It is indeed 

 more hkely that tiiis animal might be destroyed here by some epidemic dis- 

 temper, or pestilential murrain. 



It remains that we inquire, what species of animal it was to which these 

 enormous horns belonged. It is an opinion generally received that they belonged 

 to the alche, elche, or elenda, and therefore they are usually called elks' horns. 

 But they are quite different from these, both in shape and in size, and cannot by 

 any means belong to the same animal. Indeed the description of that majestic 

 horned animal in x\merica, called the moose, or moose deer, agrees sufficiently 

 well with it ; having the same sort of palmed horns, of similar length and 

 breadth, as well as figure, and the bulk of their bodies corresponding exactly 

 in proportion to the wide spreading of their horns. So that it may be con- 

 eluded that the moose-deer were formerly as frequent in Ireland as they are 

 still in the northern parts of the West-Indies, New-England, Virginia, Mary- 

 land, and Canada. 



This animal I find described by Mr. John Josselyn among his New-England 

 rarities, in these words : " The moose-deer, common in these parts, is a very 

 goodly creature, some of them 12 feet high, (in height, says another author 

 more particularly, from the toe of the fore-foot to the pitch of the shoulder 12 

 feet : in its full growth much larger than an ox.) with exceedingly fair horns 

 with broad palms, some of them 2 fathom or 12 feet from the tip of one horn 

 to the other." That is, 14 inches wider than ours was. 



Another thus describes the manner of the Indians hunting this creature: 

 They commonly hunt the moose, which is a kind of deer, in the winter, and 

 run him down sometimes in half, or a whole day, when the ground is covered 

 with snow, which usually lies here 4 feet deep ; the beast, very heavy, sinks 

 every step as he runs, breaking down trees as thick as a man's thigh with his 

 horns ; at length they get up with it, and darting their lances, wound it so 

 that the creature walks heavily on, till tired and spent with loss of blood it 

 sinks and falls like a ruined building, making the earth shake under it." 



There are several things in which Ireland and the West-Indies partake in 

 common. For as on the coast of New-England and the island Bermudas con- 

 siderable quantities of ambergris are gathered ; so on the western coast of 

 Ireland, along the counties of Sligo, Mayo, Kerry, and the isles of Arran, 

 they frequently meet with large parcels of that precious substance, so highly 

 valued for its perfume. Near Sligo there was found one piece that weighed 52 

 ounces. On the outside it was of a close compact substance, blackish and 

 shining like pitch ; but when it was cut, the inside was more porous, and some- 

 thing of a yellowish colour, not so grey, close, and smooth as the cleanest and 



