OCCURRENCE OF A SUBMERGED FOREST. 171 
Rickety Street Bridge, at about seven hundred and sixty feet from 
the latter and fifteen yards from the western bank of the canal as 
now constructed. They were entombed in sandy clay, near the 
top of the estuarine clay marked (e), and just above the shell bed, 
They were five feet six inches to eight feet six inches below the 
present high water level, and a total depth of four feet six inches 
to seven feet six inches below the swamp surface level, previous to 
excavation. The bones were thus distributed through a thickness 
of about three feet of the sandy estuarine clay. The bones are 
those of Halicore dugong, Gmelin, sp., and were found confusedly. 
heaped together. Although representing only a portion of the 
skeleton, we see no reason to doubt that they all belonged to one 
and the same individual. The following table shows the number 
found as compared with that of those of the living Dugong. The 
skull was recovered on two different occasions, the skull on one, 
the mandible on the other. The shoulder girdles, paddles, and 
pelvic bones are wholly wanting. 3 
| Dugong 
Name of Bones. Poa rding Creek 
o Flower.+ Bones. 
Cervical Vertebre 7 X, 
Thoracic 19 17 
Lumbar 4 3 
dal 27 5 
s ll deals 26 
+ Flower, Osteol. Mammalia, 3rd ed., 1885. 
The whole of the bones are in an excellent state of preservation, 
and are more or less fossilised, particularly the ribs, which never- 
theless still retain a portion of the original animal matter. The 
Structure of the bone substance of the ribs is very dense, and is, as 
with difficulty scratched with a knife on a fractured surface. The 
ribs in a recent Dugong are very heavy proportionately, dense 
and hard. A comparison of thin sections respectively of the ribs 
of this Dugong and of those of a recent Dugong shows that their 
mineralogical condition and structure are in both cases almost 
identical. We see no reason to doubt the identity of this Sirenian 
with the existing Dugong, and although — mer 
