208 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Feb. 24, 



Kilmaurs in Ayrshire *, in a deposit of sand and clay, which has 

 been proved by Mr. Bryce to underlie the till. Antlers of Reindeer 

 have also been obtained from the same stratum, and are now de- 

 posited in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow. The remarkable fact 

 that these two animals were derived from beds underneath the till 

 does not imply that Scotland has been submerged since they lived 

 in that country ; for it is very probable, as Mr. Geikie f has shown, 

 that the till in some places is the result of the melting of land-ice, 

 and not of icebergs floating on the sea. The second instance on 

 record is that of the Mammoth from the Union Canal, between 

 Edinburgh and Falkirk J. A tusk was found at Clifton Hall in the 

 stiff boulder-clay, 15 or 20 feet from the surface, in such preserva- 

 tion that it was sold to an ivory-turner for <£2. Before it 

 was rescued by Sir Gibson Maitland it had been sawn asunder for the 

 manufacture of chessmen. The third locality is that of Chapel IIall§, 

 near Airdrie, in Dumbartonshire, where a bone of the Mammoth 

 was obtained from a deposit underlying the till, at a height of 

 350 feet above the sea. Mr. Geikie assigns the Reindeer -antler 

 found in a cutting of the Forth and Clyde Junction Railway, in the 

 parish of Kilmarnock ||, to the period of the till. It was obtained 

 from a bed of blue clay, at a height of about 100 feet above the sea. 

 Mr. James Geikie has also described the occurrence of a skull of 

 Urus in a lacustrine deposit intercalated in the boulder-drift at 

 Croftshead, Renfrewshire ^. 



With the exception of these five cases, I know of no evi- 

 dence that Postglacial mammals ever existed in Scotland. The 

 remains of other animals, such as Urus, Reddeer, and the like, have 

 been obtained from marl-beds underlying the peat or from alluvia, 

 which are Prehistoric and not Postglacial. 



In Ireland** there are two localities only that have furnished re- 

 mains of indisputably Postglacial age. Four teeth of the Mammoth 

 were found, in digging the foundations of a house, at Maghery, near 

 Belturbet, in Cavan. In the south, a cave near Dungarvan has 

 furnished the remains of Ursus (U. spelceus? U. arctos?), Mammoth, 

 and Reindeer. A tusk of Hippopotamus, which I have been unable 

 to trace, is also quoted, by Mr. Scott, from the boulder-clay of Car- 

 rickfergus ; but the account of its discovery is not circumstantial. 



Thus there is evidence that, for some reason or other, the Post- 

 glacial mammals, so abundant in England, were extremely rare both 

 in Scotland and Ireland. 



§ 8. Cause of unequal distribution. — What adequate cause, then, 

 can be assigned for the unequal distribution of the mammals in the 



* Mem. Wern. Soc. vol. iv. p. 64. 



t Trans. Greol. Soc. Glasgow, vol. i. part ii. p. 70 ; Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. 

 xxi. p. 213. 



X Mem. Wern. Soc. vol. iv. p. 58. 



§ Proc. Geol. Soc. vol. iii. p. 415. See Bryce, Geol. Arran, p. 9. 



II Edin. New Phil. Journ. N.S, vol. vi. p. 105 ; Trans. Geol. Soc, Glasgow, 

 vol. i. part ii. p. 71. 



^ Geological Magazine, vol. v. pp. 393, 486, 535. 



♦* Journ. Geol. Soc. Dublin, Feb. 10th, 1864, vol. x. p. 103. 



