230 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. ([Feb. 2, 
state of the mammalian benes that occur im the ancient alluvial de- 
posits of England. They are permeated and coloured more or less 
deeply by a solution of iron, and the cancelli are filled by the mud 
or silt im which they were found imbedded. They are but little 
water-worn, and have not suffered much abrasion ; having, probably, 
been protected by the muscles and soft parts during their transport 
to the places where they were deposited. In short, their state of 
fossilization corroborates the accounts given of the nature of the 
alluvial bed from which they were procured; they strikingly re- 
semble in this respect the bones of the Irish Elk, Mammoth, &c. 
of our diluvium. 
But the bones collected by my son present a very different appear- 
ance from any previously received from New Zealand; instead of 
being of a dark colour, heavy, and permeated by silt and iron, they 
are, on the contrary, light and porous, and of a delicate fawn-colour ; 
the most fragile processes being entire, and the articulating surfaces 
as smooth and uninjured as if prepared by the anatomist: egg-shells, 
mandibles, even the bony rings of the air-tubes are preserved. In 
their general aspect these bones most resemble those from Gaylen- 
reuth and other ossiferous caverns. The state of preservation of 
these specimens is evidently due to the material in which they were 
imbedded, ‘which is a loose volcanic sand, containing magnetic iron, 
crystals of hornblende and augite, &c., the detritus of augitie rocks 
and earthy tuff. This sand has filled all the cavities and cancelli 
that have external openings, but is in no mstance consolidated or 
ageregated together; it is easily removed from the bones by shaking, 
or by a soft brush. A very few water-worn pebbles of volcanic rocks 
were the only extraneous bodies found in the sand: there are no 
vestiges of shells of mollusca of any kind; but there is in the collec- 
tion a small drca imbedded in a sandy clay, and an ammonite coated 
with pyrites, so like a specimen of 4. diplex from the Kimmeridge 
clay of England, as not to be distinguishable from a genuine British 
fossil. 
The name of Waingangoro, the locality which my son mentions as 
that where he dug up the greater part of his collection, does not 
appear in the maps of New Zealand I have mspected ; but from some 
incidental remarks in his letters, I have reason to infer that it is 
situated in the higher part of the valley of the Wanganui, a river 
which has its source in the volcanic regions of Mount Egmont. It 
was at the embouchure of the Wanganui that Mr. Taylor obtained 
the bones in his possession. It will be remembered that the streams 
which yielded the relics procured by Mr. Colenso and Mr. Williams, 
lie to the east of Tongariro, and probably originate in that elevated 
voleanic chain, many parts of which are above the line of perpetual 
snow. The specimens collected by my son were found imbedded in 
and filled with loose sand, at a considerable distanee from the bed of 
the river ; in no iustance do they exhibit any traces of silt or fluviatile 
mud. My son mentions having on one occasion obtained bones from 
a potato-pit sunk by a native remote from any stream*. 
* Wonders of Geology, 6th edition, p. 129. 
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