38 Mr. R. J. Ussher on 



though frequently found in bogs, had never been discovered 

 before in a cave in Ireland, nor associated here with evidences 

 ot man ; but no sooner did Dr. Leith Adams find the bones of 

 this gigantic deer in the same bed with charcoal and other 

 relics of man than he freely confessed we had found proof that 

 the Irish elk had existed in the human period in this country. 

 In England Irish elk had been found with man in Kent's 

 cavern. The gigantic size of the stately and beautiful animal 

 may be judged by the skeletons and antlers in our museums. 

 Though found in other countries it has nowhere been found so 

 abundantly as in Ireland, where it had probably had fewer 

 enemies, as there were not so many species of beasts of prey, 

 and it certainly multiplied and flourished largely throughout 

 this island, where its remains are often found in, or rathei 

 under, bogs, most commonly in the shell-marl. At Cappagh 

 my father found the bones and antlers of at least sixteen, and in 

 Ballybetagh Bog, County Dublin, no fewer than one hundred 

 and thirty individuals were discovered. It is chiefly the males 

 that are thus found, probably owing to the enormous weight of 

 their antlers having made them more likely to be drowned or 

 bogged. 



But to return to the Ballynamintra cave, we found in the 

 earth of the second stratum or in crevices of the rocky walls 

 many bones of the Irish elk. They were split and broken, the 

 ends of the narrow bones being invariably knocked off, as used 

 to be done by all ancient peoples to the bones of an ox and 

 other beasts. Moieover, the pieces of Irish elks' antlers could 

 hardly have been brought into that small cave except by man, 

 the animal being too large to enter it alive. These facts of 

 themselves show that we had found the retreat of an early 

 people who had hunted the Irish elk, of which at least five 

 individuals were represented by their remains. In the same 

 stratum that contained them were quantities of burned wood, 

 and this charcoal, which formed a seam in the midst of the 

 grey earth, marked an ancient floor or hearth, and proved that 

 the bed had not been disturbed. There were also sea shells in 



