hunter's posthumous paper on fossils. 319 



" There are many more of such bones as are found in the peat in 

 Ireland; many in Scotland, both in peat and other substances." . . . . 



" I also bring into this class the animal whose teeth are sent us from 

 America [Mastodon giganteus], as also from Siberia [Elephas primig emus'], 

 of an immense large size. 



" It is reasonable to suppose that this animal does not now exist 

 anywhere. And as the deer, whose bones we found in this country 

 and in a similar way also, does not exist, we may suppose that the 

 destruction of them both was similar ; and as the elephants, sea-horses, 

 beavers, &c, do not exist in the countries where these bones are found, 

 we may suppose that in these countries they were subject to the same 

 fate ; but such being more universal animals, the species are preserved 

 where such [destructive] cause did not take place." — P. xlvii. 



"With regard to the antiquity of the human race, Hunter quotes a 

 letter which he had received from Sir James Hall, of Scotland, dated 

 Rome, February 24th, 1785. 



In this letter a hill is described that lies about three miles from 

 Rome, in the road to Loretto. " It is about 300 or 400 yards beyond an 

 old tower, called Torre del Quinto. A tomb, called Ovid's, is dug into 

 it, and fifty or sixty yards nearer Rome is a gravel-pit, which is the spot 

 in question. The hill terminates abruptly in a vertical crag, at the foot 

 of which the road passes, leaving it on the left hand as one goes from 

 Rome. This crag exhibits the internal structure of the mass, which 

 consists of horizontal strata. The hill is about 100 feet high above the 

 level of the plain along which it passes : — 



" 1st. The upper part, on which the vegetable earth rests, is a bed 

 60 or 80 feet thick, of a kind of tufa or soft volcanic stone, full of 

 lumps of black pumice of the size of a fist, more or less. 



" 2nd. A stratum of rolled pebbles, of various kinds of stone, some 

 calcareous, some flinty, and some pumice. In general they have under- 

 gone some action, which makes them crumble when taken out ; in some 

 places they are bound by a calcareous cement, and in others little 

 attached, and mixed with sand. This stratum is about 3 feet thick in 

 one place, and tapers from right to left to the thickness of a few inches, 

 on an extent of thirty or forty yards." .... 



" "We found the bones contained in this box in the first stratum of 

 gravel between the two beds of tufa. "We got up to this place by a 

 bank formed by the crumbling of the hill above, and the matters thrown 

 out of the gravel-pit on the right side of it. There is the greatest reason 

 to suppose that the place where they were found had never been moved 

 since the tufa came there ; that is, that the bones and the stones of the 

 stratum were placed there by the same cause, and previous to the 



