316 - The Old Bone Condemned. [onar. xvu. 
The minister, though he could say nothing about the 
bone, knew that there were great leviathans in the waters, 
for he had read about, them in the Scriptures; but he had 
never seen aty notice of such things being found in clay- 
banks. The doctor, after looking at it, and turning it 
round and round, said that if it was a bertes at least it did’ 
not belong to the human structure. The dominie, like his: 
other learned friends, could throw no greater light upon the 
subject. He did not think it was a bone at all, but. only 
a monstrous piece of petrified bamboo! Then the men of 
science of the Banff Institution were applied to, but they 
could make no more of the object than the minister, the 
doctor, and the dominie. Finally Captain Reid. presented. . 
it to the museum of the Banff Scientific Society, and there 
it remained until Edward first saw it. 
It would appear, however, that the curator had become 
tired of the bone, or whatever else it was, and wished to 
get rid of it. He removed it from the case in which it was 
deposited, and threw it among the rubbish of the museum. 
‘When Edward was appointed. sub-curator of the museum, 
about nine years afterward, his first natural impulse was to 
go to the table where the bone had been deposited, but, lo! 
it had beén removed. He searched the whole place, but no 
bone was to be found. He feared lest the curator had car- 
ried out his intention, and burned it. 
Next morning Edward received orders to destroy a lot of 
useless stuff which lay on the floor, consisting of broken- 
down astronomical and philosophical instruments, moth- 
eaten beasts, birds, and fishes, together with other wrecked. 
specimens of the long-neglected museum. Edward went 
to work, and while grouping among the rubbish at the bot- 
tom of the heap, he came upon a round dark object. He 
brought it up, and, lo! it was the “auld been”—im other 
words, the old bone! It had not been burned! “He cleaned 
it and put it in the old place. 
‘When the curator next made his appearance to ascertain 
