EARLY NOTICES OF THE BEAVER. 375 



him of very modern times, while to his companion, — then occupied with 

 investigations exclusively confined to the era of man as an occupant of 

 the globe, — it was a memorial of ages belonging to a transitional era 

 during which the ancient earth gave place to that of which man was 

 henceforth to be the chief denizen. The most memorable result of that 

 conversation, was, the explanation then given of ideas he had formed, 

 relative to a chronological key to the age of the existing and ancient 

 Scottish coast lines, based on the height from the present sea level of 

 the caverns abounding along its rocky shores, when taken into conside- 

 ration with the relative depths of excavation of these sea-worn recesses, 

 some of which may be seen in process of formation, especially where 

 the long roll of the Atlantic wave is abruptly arrested by the rock- 

 bound coast of the western Highlands. This, with so many other 

 ingenious speculations and profoundly suggestive thoughts, of which 

 such mere hints survive, were doubtless intended to be embodied in 

 the great work on Scottish Geology, which now remains an unaccom- 

 plished idea. 



But such reminisences tempt me away from the subject in hand ; 

 though in returning to it, I am again reminded of old Edinburgh 

 associates and friends, in naming the late Dr. Patrick Neill. In 1819, 

 Dr. Neill read an interesting paper before the Wemerian Natural 

 History Society of Edinburgh,* in which he referred to the specimen 

 of the extinct Scottish beaver, preserved in the museum of the Society 

 of Antiquaries, describing the circumstances under which it was found, 

 and specially noting the discoA^ery in a neiglibou-ing marl-pit of the 

 two metatarsal bones, and a pair of branched horns of a large extinct 

 species of deer. In the same paper, Dr. Neill drew attention to another 

 disclosure of similar fossil remains, the vecfnfc discovery of which had 

 then led to the revival of the subject. These, which were found in 

 October, 1818, included the entire skeleton of a beaver, lying partially 

 embedded in marl, under an accumulation of peat moss seven feet in 

 thickness. In this were recognized the shells of filberts, ivith the 

 wood of the birch, alder, and oak. Only the skull and lower 

 jaw were recovered, the other bones having been found in too soft and 

 fragile a condition to admit of removal, aud they are now preserved in 

 the Museum of Edinburgh University. Here also were found, a gi- 

 gantic pair of deer's horns ; and, what is of more interest, the writer 



* Edinburgh Philosophical Jounjal, Vol. I.j p. 183. Mem, "Weraeriau Natural History 

 Society, Vol, III., p. 207. 



