PEIMATES FROM MADAGASCAE. 71 



It is evident in the first place, from the facts akeady detailed, that the river, in order 

 to reach its present level, must have cut through some 80 feet of material. Its course, 

 however, now lies, as above explained, between the recent volcanic and the ancient 

 primitive rock, and it is at the expense of both these formations that its new channel 

 has been cut. To anyone who knows the effect of the annual tropical rains on the 

 disintegrated granites and gneisses of the central region of Madagascar, the denudation 

 of a depth of 80 or 100 feet in a comparatively small number of years is quite 

 conceivable. Again, since, as above shown, the lake which formerly occupied the site 

 of the present marsh received year by year the alluvium brought down by the floods 

 during the rainy season, a deposit of several feet of earth and organic debris need not 

 necessarily have occupied a very lengthened period. The wonderful state of preser- 

 vation of many of the remains, both of plants and animals, would seem to suggest a 

 comparatively recent origin ; thus one Lemur's skull contained when found a white 

 pulpy substance, evidently representing the brain of the animal. On the other 

 hand, the well-known preservative action of the organic acids of the bog must be 

 remembered. 



Fragments of pottery, beads, and other traces of the occupation by man of the 

 surrounding district occur in the upper strata. One small round piece of earthenware 

 of foreign origin is especially interesting. I have submitted this to Mr. C. H. Eead, ot 

 the British Museum, who reports that it is a coarse earthenware of Chinese manu- 

 facture. " Its presence at this remote site in the interior of Madagascar must probably 

 be attributed to intercourse with Arab traders. Dr. Forsyth Major in his memoir on 

 Megaladafis madagascariensis has referred to the legends current among the natives 

 relating to the former existence in the island of extinct animals of large size. That 

 memories of the quite recent existence of the Hippopotamus exist in many localities is 

 unquestionable, indeed the native name (lalomena) finds a frequent place in local 

 traditions and folklore. There is also a reference to a creature called the ToJcan-dia 

 (" the one with a single footprint "), which may well have been the jEpyornis. Taking 

 all these facts into consideration I should be inclined to fix the age of the uppermost 

 of t.he Lemuroid remains (including a skull of Palteoinopithecus and one of MesojJro- 

 pithecus found about 90 cm. below the present surface of the marsh) as probably not 

 more than five centuries. But evidently there is large scope for conjecture in 

 the attempt to solve such a problem. One may at any rate from a biological point 

 of view regard all these subfossil Malagasy Lemuroids as the contemporaries of 

 extant species in other parts of the island. 



