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was at times four or five ieet deep, but some years ago he drained it 

 in part by a ditch four feet deep, so that now it is merely a wet 

 swampy place, about forty yards in length by twenty-five wide. 

 During the drought last summer it became quite dry, and he took 

 the opportunity to dig out a portion of the earth for manure. In 

 doing this he discovered the bones. The basin slopes gradually 

 from the east to a depth of about twelve feet near the western side. 

 On the top is about one foot of vegetable deposite formed of decayed 

 leaves, &c., then about six inches of whitish sand mixed with vege- 

 table matter, and below this a deposite, which Mr. Ayers says, when 

 first opened, was of a yellowish colour, very much resembling in ap- 

 pearance the manure of a cow yard when thrown up in heaps in the 

 winter, and had a very strong smell of the same kind. Exposure to 

 the weather has changed its colour to the dull, bluish black of 

 swamp earth, which it seems to be mixed with, great quantities of 

 vegetable remains, principally of marsh plants, with scattered frag- 

 ments of branches of trees, &c. In this deposite the remains were 

 found covered from four to six feet deep, except the largest, which 

 lay near the south-east side of the basin, and were but slightly 

 covered. A few feet to the north of this lay the next in size on its 

 back, and a little to the north and west of this the other two, both as 

 if in a standing position, and the calf was found in a similar position 

 near the north side of the basin. From Mr. Ayers' description, the 

 bones of the largest one must have been disturbed after its death, as 

 the tusks were found reversed alongside of the neck. Between the 

 ribs of two or three of them, was a considerable quantity of v/hat Mr. 

 Ayers describes as resembling coarse chopped straw, mixed with 

 fragments of sticks, — no doubt the contents of the stomach. 



Not more than one-fourth of the basin has been examined. The 

 openings in it have been made at random, and in each an animal has 

 been found, so that there is probably a number more. "The ques- 

 tion," says Mr. Maxwell, " very naturally occurs, how and when did 

 so many of these huge animals become imbedded in this narrow space? 

 Questions more easily asked than answered. My first conjecture 

 before seeing the place, was that they had been mired in attempting 

 to reach a spring or lick; but the small extent and shallowness of the 

 basin, and the gradual descent and character of its bottom, (which as 

 far as has been examined, is perfectly solid and like much of the 

 ground around, closely paved with rolled stones of gneiss and lime- 

 stone, generally 6 or 8 inches in diameter,) all forbid such a supposi- 

 tion. It is possible that they may have been swept there by a deluge, 



