§8. THE IRISH ELK. 133 



and gravel, in many parts of England, France, Germany, 

 and Italy, associated with recent species of river-shells. 



This extinct creature far exceeded in magnitude any 

 living species of deer. The skeleton is upwards of ten 

 feet high from the ground to the highest point of the 

 antlers, which are palmated, and are from ten to fourteen 

 feet from one extremity to the other.* Skulls have been 

 found without horns, and are supposed to have belonged 

 to females ; the average weight of the skull and antlers is 

 about seventy -five pounds. The bones are generally in a 

 fine state of preservation, of a dark brown colour, with 

 here and there a bluish incrustation of phosphate of iron, 

 like those of the deer from Lewes Levels. In some in- 

 stances they are in such a state of preservation that the 

 medullary cavities contain marrow having the appearance 

 of fresh suet, and which burns on the application of a 

 lighted taper. This Elk shed its horns, and probably, like 

 existing species, annually. The researches and observa- 

 tions of Professor Jameson, Mr. Weaver, and others, have 

 rendered it highly probable that this majestic creature 

 was coeval with man. A skull was discovered in Ger- 

 many, associated with urns and stone hatchets ; and in the 

 county of Cork, a human body was exhumed from a 

 wet and marshy soil, beneath a bed of peat eleven feet 

 thick ; the body was in good preservation, and enveloped 

 in a deer-skin covered with hair, which appeared to be 

 that of a gigantic Elk. A rib of this animal has been 

 found, in which there is a perforation evidently occasioned 

 by a pointed instrument while the creature was alive ; for 

 there is an effusion of callus or new bony matter, which 

 could only have resulted from something remaining in the 

 wound for a considerable period ; such an effect, indeed, 

 as would be produced by the head of an arrow or spear, j 



* There is a fine skeleton of the Irish Elk in the British Museum, 

 f Jameson's Cuvier. 



