TOL. L.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 205 



of 6 inches. Both the extremities appeared to be a little rubbed by the fluctuating 

 water, in which Mr. P. apprehended it lay some time before the great jumble ob- 

 tained, which brought it to the aforesaid place; and whence he imagined it to 

 have been part of a skeleton before the flood. For if it had been corroded by 

 any menstruum in the earth, or during the great conflux of water before the 

 draining of the earth, it must have suffered in other parts as well as at each end, 

 but as the extremities only are injured, such a partial efi^ect can be attributed to 

 the motion of the water only, which caused it to rub and strike against the 

 sand, &c. 



The small trochanter was broken in lifting it out of the hamper, in which it 

 was brought to Mr. P.; but not unhappily; since all the cancelli were by that 

 means discovered to be filled with a sparry matter, that fixed the stone of the 

 stratum, in which it lay. The outer coat or cortex was smooth, and of a dusky 

 brown colour, resembling that of the stone, in which it was bedded. One-half 

 of the bone was buried in the stone : yet enough of it was exposed to show that 

 it was the thigh-bone of an animal of greater bulk than the largest ox. He had 

 compared it with the recent thigh-bone of an elephant; but could observe little 

 or no resemblance between them. If he might be allowed to assume the liberty, 

 in which fossilists are often indulged, and to hazard a vague conjecture of his 

 own, he would say it might probably have belonged to the hippopotamus, to the 

 rhinoceros, or to some such large animal, of whose anatomy we have not yet a 

 competent knowledge. 



The slate-pit, in which this bone was found, was about -i- of a mile north- 

 west from Stonesfield, on the declivity of a rising ground, the upper stratum 

 of which was a vegetable mould about 8 or 10 inches thick; under this was a 

 bed of rubble, with a mixture of sand and clay, very coarse, about 6 feet deep, 

 in which were a great number of anomias both plain and striated, and many small 

 oblong oysters, which the workmen called the sickle-oyster, some of them being 

 found crooked, and bearing some resemblance to that instrument ; but all differ- 

 ing from the curvi-rostra of Moreton. Immediately under this stratum of rubble 

 was a bed of soft grey stone, of no use; but containing the echini ovarii, with 

 great mamillae, the clypeati of different sizes, all well preserved; and also many 

 anomice and pectines. This bed, which was about 7 or 8 feet in depth, lay im- 

 mediately above the stratum of stone, in which the bone was found.. 



This stratum was never wrought by the workmen, being arenarious, and too 

 soft for their use. It was about 4 or 5 feet thick, and formed a kind of roof to 

 them, as they dug out the stone, of which the slates were formed; for they 

 worked these pits in the same manner as they do the coal-pits^ leaving pillars at 

 proper distances to keep their roof from falling in. This last bed of slate-stone 

 was about 5 feet in depth, and lower than this they never dug. So that the whole 



