DILUVIUM. DRIFT AND ERRATIC BLOCKS. 



759 



feet long, and the whole height, to the tip of the right horn, rather more than nine feet 

 and a half. The antlers dug out of a bed of marl near Drogheda, in Ireland, had the 

 under-mentioned gigantic proportions : from the extreme tip of each horn, 10 feet 

 10 inches ; from the tip of the right horn to its root, 5 feet 2 inches ; and from the 

 nearest tip of one horn to the nearest tip of the other, 3 feet 7^- inches. 



The remains of deer of unknown species, but allied to the red deer, reindeer, fallow 

 deer, and musk deer, are very numerous, often associated with those of the horse, bear, 

 dog, wolf, beaver, and ox, generally discordant with the existing races. The oxen differ 

 from the present varieties in being larger, with the horns relatively more massive, and 

 separated from each other at the tips by a wider expansion. 



We are no doubt justified in ranking as contemporaneous formations with the drift 

 containing the remains of the animals noticed, the osseous breccias and the ossiferous 

 deposits of ancient caverns, which have exercised so much the ingenuity of geologists. 

 The former are fissures of certain rocks filled up, or partially so, with a conglomerate 

 consisting of the bones of ruminants, pebbles, mud, and parts of shells, cemented into a 

 hard rock by a reddish calcareous concretion, the principal of which at present known are 

 those of Gibraltar, of Antibes, and Nice. The latter have been described in the chapter 



%on Caverns as having a floor of 

 drifted sand and gravel, with bones, 

 consolidated into a hard pavement. 

 The wrecks of the mighty herbi- 

 vorous animals noticed are chiefly 

 imbedded in the superficial drift, 

 the bones of the caves consisting 

 mainly of carnivora, extinct species 

 of bears, wolves, weasels, foxes, 

 hyaenas, and tigers. The conclu- 

 sions indicated by these ossiferous 

 caves are, that some of them were 

 the dens of wild beasts, perhaps 

 for a long period before the epoch 

 of their destruction, which here de- 

 voured their prey, leaving the bones 

 to accumulate ; or that here several 

 animals fled to escape from the 

 inundation which effected their ex- 

 tinction ; or that their remains were 

 subsequently drifted hither with the 

 sand and mud during the prevalence 

 of the catastrophe which submerged 

 the country they had inhabited. 

 Probably the ossiferous caverns are 

 the result of all these causes. 



No trace of Man, or of any of 

 his works, has been discovered in 

 any formation so antique as those 

 deposits of drift which are the 

 tombs of the quadrupeds we have 

 noticed. At a former period, when 

 the drift was regarded as the pro- 



3c4 



Supposed Human Skeleton of Scheuchzer. 



