1684 Quadrupeds . 



known localities where this curious substance is in process of formation : in 

 some of these it assumes the appearance of beautiful white coral ; in others, as at the 

 celebrated Nesbury well, in Yorkshire, lawyers' wigs, bird's-nests with eggs, and nume- 

 rous other articles, are immersed in the water purposely to obtain an incrustation of the 

 substance in question. Coming nearer home, there is a water-tank at Kingstown, 

 near Dublin, which was excavated as a quarry. The natural fissures of the rock run 

 towards the sea-shore, and this tank receives its share of the water which infiltrates 

 through the fissures, carrying with it acids, metals and fragments of vegetables. Pebble- 

 stones, branches of trees, or small vessels immersed in this tank, very speedily receive 

 a coating of the tuffa, which, if the articles are dried in the sunshine, soon assumes all 

 the hardness of mountain limestone : indeed so extraordinary is the rapidity with 

 which the tuffa is deposited, that the tank would shortly be filled with it were it not fre- 

 quently cleaned out. There is another locality for this deposit near Kingstown, at the 

 back of Killiney Hill, where are several borings into the rock, made in search of lead : 

 the roofs and sides of these borings are beautifully covered with stalactites formed of 

 this substance : near the same place, in a water-drip descending from Killiney towards 

 the sea-shore, the substance is carried down by the water to the sea-shore and 

 crosses a sandy space of about a hundred yards in length and thirty or forty in width, 

 and this comes in contact with the sea-beach, which is there composed of small frag- 

 ments of granite, flint, lime, and other stones ; all of which are cemented into a kind 

 of conglomerate by the tuffa, and are used by a variety of polypes for the purpose of 

 habitations : these are tubes of an hexagonal form, and are surmounted by a thimble- 

 shaped mouth or opening. Wherever Mr. Nolan and myself have examined any con- 

 siderable deposit of the tuffa, we have invariably found it regularly interrupted by lay- 

 ers of vegetable matter carried down by winter floods and heavy rains. On no occasion 

 did we find in this deposit a single sea-shell or fossil-shell of any kind, neither any fos- 

 silized wood or fossil bones ; but specimens of Helix nemoralis, H. hortensis, and a 

 few other land-shells, and several fresh-water species, are not uncommonly found, and 

 in company with these shells occur the bones of the giant deer. Now it appears to me, 

 that Mr. Owen has been led astray by his Dublin informant as to the formation in 

 which the remains of the deer are found ; and I can truly say, that neither Mr. Owen 

 himself, nor his informant, nor any other person, has had the opportunity of being pre- 

 sent at the taking up of so many bones of the giant deer as myself. I am, therefore, 

 able to correct him in many particulars : had he ever witnessed the taking up of a 

 skeleton of this animal, he never would have stated that the skeleton in the Royal 

 Dublin Society's Museum was a perfect one, for it wants no less than forty bones, and 

 nine of the caudal vertebrae are made of papier mache, and the animal is thus provided 

 with a fine long wagging tail, which Mr. Owen has faithfully copied in his work on 

 Fossil Mammalia : in point of fact, the animal never had any tail at all, as I am able 

 to demonstrate beyond fear, of contradiction. The skeletons which Mr. Owen ex- 

 amined were made up of the largest bones found in the bone-holes, and these as often 

 belonged to horses and cows as to the giant deer. In reference to the accounts of so 

 many bones of this animal occurring in England and on the continent, may I be al- 

 lowed to inquire what has become of the very large quantities of bones, skulls, and 

 horns, sold by Mr. Nolan and myself during the last forty years, to English, Scotch, 

 French, and German dealers ? it would be most amusing to trace them to their final 

 destination. I recollect a very curious looking foreigner, who called himself Dr. 

 Peppercorn, coming here about twenty vears ago ; he represented himself as being 



