2^4 Zoological Proceedings of Societies. 



These animals must have been drowned whea-the lakes were 

 of a certaiu depth. Their bones are found in the raarle, unaccom- 

 panied by sand or gravel, or any proofs of disturbing forces. From 

 the shape of the surrounding land in some instances, it appears 

 that floods could not have swept them in ; and from the occasional 

 absence of rivers flowing into others, they could not have been 

 washed in by them. 



The author therefore suggests that tliey were Jest in attempting 

 to cross the ice in winter; the water never freezing sufficiently 

 hard above the springs to bear their weight, and springs abounding 

 always in those lakes in Forfarshire and Perthshire, in which 

 marie is deposited. 



The skeletons of some of the animals found in the shell marie 

 in Forfarshire, are in a vertical position, but some are not. The 

 same circumstance has been remarked with regard to the Elks 

 occurring in the roarle in the Isle of Man. Of these facts Mr. 

 Lyell offers the following explanatiop.. 



Cattle which are lost in bogs and marshes sink in, and die in an 

 erect posture, and are often found with their heads only appearing 

 above the surface of the ground. When therefore a lake in which 

 marie is deposited is shallow, the Quadrupeds which fall through 

 the ice sink into the marie in the same manner, and perish in an 

 upright posture ; but when the lake is deep, and the animals are 

 dead before they reach the bottom, they become enveloped in the 

 niarle in any position rather than the vertical. 



June 17. — An extract of a letter was read from John Kingdom, 

 Esq. communicated by Jos. Townsend, Esq. F.G.S. 



Mr. Kingdom mentions in this letter the situation in which 

 certain bones of a very large size, appearing to have belonged to a 

 Whale and a Crocodile, were lately found completely imbedded 

 in the Oolite Quarries, about a mile from Chipping Norton, near 

 Chapel House. 



THE Nr.W ZOOLOGICAL INSTITUTION'. 



It is with much satisfaction that we record the preliminary 

 anangpDunls thai have been made, for the establishment of a new 



