lxxiv PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLCGICAL SOCIETY. 
pebbles and the rocks beneath. While this is true in some districts, 
and is more particularly worthy of attention over great fiats, or floors 
of subjacent rock, sloping in various directions at exceedingly small 
angles, as is to be seen over the great central plain of Ireland, at other 
times we find huge blocks of rock perched about upon mountain sum- 
mits, with scratches beneath and adjacent to them, as if we saw the 
very instruments which made them. These blocks, however, occur 
in situations which appear to show that they have been brought across 
deep valleys, as if ice-borne, and when the relative level of sea and 
land was very different from that which it now is, though we have 
only to look to comparatively recent geological times for their trans- 
port. 
A memoir was communicated by Prof. Oldham, bearing upon the 
later geological changes which have been effected upon the area occu- 
pied by the British islands, as also upon the climate of the time. He 
announced the discovery of the undoubted remains of the reindeer 
(Cervus tarandus), in peat, marl and clay, near Kiltiernan, in the 
county of Dublin, m company with numerous antlers of the Insh elk 
(Megaceros). The evidence on this head is vaiuable, more parti- 
cularly when added to the inference of Prof. Owen, in his Report on 
British Fossil Mammalia, that these animals once existed mm our. 
islands, and to the statement of Dr. Mantell respecting the remains 
of reindeer found in the Isle of Wight. Two other Irish specimens, 
m bad preservation, had previously been under the notice of Mr. Ball 
of Dublin. The value of this undoubted occurrence of the reindeer 
im Ireland will be at once apparent to those who remember the views 
taken by Prof. Edward Forbes, and published in the Memoirs of the 
Geological Survey, respecting the comparatively recent separation of 
the British islands, by elevation of the mass and subsequent sea action, 
from the main continent, thus cutting off the animals and plants which 
emanated thence from the remains of the parent stock. And this 
discovery is of the more value, when we connect it with the inferences 
to be drawn from the mixture of the reindeer bones with those of the 
Megaceros. 
Mr. Mallet stated in another memoir, that havmg been struck with 
the unusual appearance of stalagtites and stalagmites discovered in the 
Cave of Dunmore, county Kilkenny, he found upon examination that 
they contamed phosphoric acid, probably in combination with lime. 
He referred to the researches of M. Dumas respecting the extreme 
solubility of phosphate of lime in water charged with carbonie acid, 
so that bones or ivory-shavings immersed for a few hours in Seltzer 
water are softened and have many of their phosphates removed, 
pointing out that the phosphates in this case must have been derived 
from the dolomitic and limestone beds surmounting and including 
the Cave of Dunmore. ‘The late labours of chemists have shown us 
that the phosphates, so important for the growth of cereals, are far 
more diffused through rocks than was at one time supposed, and this 
discovery of phosphoric acid even in the stalagtites and stalagmites 
of a limestone cave, is another proof of this diffusion. 
In another communication to the Geological Society of Ireland, 
