I9I4- Stokes. — Irish Elk Remains from Co. Dublin. 117 
soft in fact so much so as to make its removal impossible. 
The remains, except for one small shed antler, belonged to 
large male animals. 
In digging these bogs, one is struck by the fact that in 
all the localities examined the formation is different. Apart 
from the peat which covers all, we found that at Howth, 
the bones lay on sand while no layers of yellowish -grey clay 
or brown clay existed. At Ballybetagh S.E. bog, all the 
deposits were present. At Ballybetagh N.W. bog (where we 
found no definite remains of Elk, but Mr. Williams in his 
paper implies that remains have been found, and local 
information tends to confirm this) to a depth of 14 feet we 
found only sandy clay with shells. At Mulligan's bog 
there was no greyish clay lying over the bones, but the peat 
and brownish clay (Williams 3) were directly superimposed. 
The fact that at Howth three skeletons and three skulls 
have been found is a striking contrast ta Ballybetagh, where 
twenty-two heads and one skeleton were discovered, the 
latter being made up from several animals. Again in the 
Mulligan bog, six skulls and two perfect skeletons were 
found, each skeleton lying in a small area with the bones 
often still articulated. At Howth the bones were not 
broken though rather soft ; at Ballybetagh the bones were 
all broken though sound ; at Mulligan's some bones were 
perfect and sound, while others were perfect but quite 
soft. 
A curious fact that we found at Ballybetagh was that 
whenever the points of the antlers would have stuck up 
into the overlying greyish clay, they were broken off and 
were usually to be found on the tenacious layer beneath. In 
the three bogs in which Irish Elk was met with we also dis- 
covered the remains of other animals at the same depth and 
sometimes actually in contact with the Elk remains. In 
all places the remains were more plentiful in the shallower 
parts. 
I am convinced that the skeletons in Ballybetagh Bog 
S.E. have been removed away, and are not in the bog as 
in every case we sank down to the Boulder-clay (Williams). 
I mention this because some previous diggers had not sunk 
