CAUSE FOR THE ORIGIN OP THE TRADITION OP THE FLOOD. 297 



plete skeletons occurring wliere tlie animals cliod. The bones were 

 ungnawed, their fractares were sharp, and they were not rolled or 

 waterworn. The series is \vell represented in tlie Plymouth Athe- 

 nceam and among the bones, &c., was found a rolled stone.* The 

 bones are those of B. Urns, E. primig-enius, eq. fossilis, ovis, cervus, 

 hy^na spelasa, R. tii'horhiuus, ursus speh^us, cauis lupus, and 

 eervus elaphus. The bones were introduced through the top of the 

 fissure. 



The summit of the Orestoa quarries is now about 80 feet 

 above the mean sea-level. 



Tlie theory of subm.ergence and emergence of the land would 

 well account for the introdaction of the bones into the fissures. 



The animals having crowded for safety to the highest ground in 

 the immediate neiglibourliood were drowned, their bones dropped 

 one by one to the then sea floor as the bodies decayed, and when 

 the uplift came the various fissures received whatever bones, lime- 

 stone debris, and mud passed over them.f 



Mr. 11. N. Worth {Transactions Devon AssnciaHon, p. 419, 1887) 

 quotes Colonel Hamilton Smith as to the occurrence of a portion 

 of a human humerus. Col. Smith (1848) says "it was immediately 

 thrown away on being pointed out ti> the possessor. This is not 

 the only instance of the kind. Collectors in the plenitude of their 

 ignorance and prepossession determined that human bones were of 

 no consequence." The bones in this instance as in others evidently 

 drifted no g'reat distance, their unworn condition being well 

 accounted for by the little friction that such water carriage would 

 entail as they fell into the fissure, though the masses of angular 

 limestone^ falling upon them fractured them. 



At Oreston we have in miniature wliat Iiappened at Santenay, 

 Gibraltar, Mont Pedemar, &c , as our uniformitarian geologists 

 will come to see when they have broken the fetters which at 

 present hamper their judgment. 



The suggestion that it is improbable that the hippopotamus, the 

 best swimmer of the Palermo fauna, won Id remain to be drowned 

 may well be dismissed. For we have to account for the presence of a 

 large number of hones broken in pieces, whose fractures are sharp and 

 do not exhibit signs of rolling or wear, nor are the bones gnaived by 

 carnivores. It is contrary to the habit of these animals to die in 

 any one spot. Moreover we find the same phenomena of local 

 angular blocks in the same breccia as the bones as are noticed 

 in so many other bone deposits of cotemporaneous fauna. Other 

 possiole explanations such as miring or drowning by volcanic 

 waters are ruled out of court by the conditions of the problem. 

 For in such cases whole skeletons ought to be found, but in 

 the Sicilian and other deposits the conditions are the same, viz., 



* Labelled "Boulder" in the Plymouth Collection, 



t De la Beche, op. cit., p. 413. | Analogous to the llubble-drift. 



