37 



turf; you then enter on a stratum, from one to 

 two feet thick, of what the farmers call the yellow 

 marie, composed of vegetable earth intermixed 

 with long yellow roots ; next the grey marie, 

 which resembles wet ashes, to the further depth 

 of two feet ; and finally a bed of decayed shells, 

 which they call shell-marle, the upper surface 

 of which forms a horizontal line across the mo- 

 rass, consequently it is thicker in the center 

 than at the edges ; under this, forming the bot- 

 tom of the pond or morass, is found gravel and 

 flate covering a thick stratum of clay. It was 

 in the white and y^ellow marie the bones were 

 generally found ; those in the white in the high- 

 est preservation, less so in the grey ; and where 

 an end happened to rise into the yellow stratum 

 it was proportionally decayed : One cause of 

 this must have been the accession of air when 

 the springs in dry seasons were low. • 



The grey marie, in which most of the bones 

 lay, by analysis was found to contain seventy- 

 three parts in the hundred of lime : when dried 

 in the sun it cracks into thin horizontal laminae, 

 and becom.es extremely light, as hard as baked 

 clay, and brittle ; in this state it burns with a 

 bright flame for a long while, and instead of 



F 



