210 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



but that they were brought to the same spot from arctic and tropical re- 

 gions by the catastrophe which buried them in the Oolite formation, which 

 was probably a universal deluge ? For arctic and tropical animals never 

 could have lived together in the same climate. The association of the re- 

 mains of arctic and tropical animals has also been observed in other places. 

 In a cavern at Brixham, near Torquay, in a mass of loam or diluvium, 

 15 feet in thickness, have been found the remains of the mammoth, the 

 extinct rhinoceros, cave-lion, cave-bear, cave-hysena, reindeer, a species of 

 horse, of ox, and several Hodentia, besides other bones not yet determined. 

 Speaking of similar geological facts, M. Cuvier remarks, that " the associ- 

 ated remains of the glutton and the hysena, the rhinoceros and the rein- 

 deer, found in the same caverns, as we observe at Gaylenreuth and 

 Brengnes ; the bison and the elephant, in the same diluvium, as we find in 

 the valley of the Arno, — certainly reveal either a state of the earth very 

 different from what we now witness, or imply in these animals a tempera- 

 ment opposite to what their kindred species now display." The remains 

 of the lion or tiger, the rhinoceros, the hysena, elephant, elk and reindeer, 

 and other animals, have also been found in the quarries of Kostritz, in 

 Upper Saxony. 



As the remains of arctic and tropical animals, whether found in caverns 

 or on the surface of the earth, are almost always embedded in loam or di- 

 luvium, which, according to Dr. Buckland, was deposited by a general 

 deluge, it is far more reasonable to suppose that, as I have already inti- 

 mated, they were transported to their present situations by a general de- 

 luge than that animals belonging now to such opposite climates should 

 have formerly lived together in the same climate. 



I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 



Thos. D. Allen. 



Rectory, North Cernet/, Cirencester, April 21, 1863. 



[How could there be a fissure before the rock was consolidated? and are we to be- 

 lieve that the elephants, etc., and men too, iu those days, lived at the bottom of the 

 sea, as they must be supposed to have done if we accept Mr. Allen's theory of the Port- 

 land ossiferous fissures occurring before the consolidation of the Portland Oolitic beds ? 

 Fissures of shrinkage may not, sometimes do not, extend to the top of a vertical sectiou, 

 any more than sand-pipes in a chalk-pit, which we know to be filled from above. The 

 accompanying diagrams will show how a fissure may extend to the surface, and yet not 

 be visible, in the face of a quarry or cliff occurs at Portland, and no doubt something 

 of this kind has mystified Mr. Allen and his friends. — Ed. Geol.] 



11=7 

 ' ~ 2, 

 3~3" 



Fig. 1 shows the vertical face of the quarry, with a fissure, a h, apparently covered by the 

 solid beds 1, 2. Fig. 2 shows the same fissure in section passing diagonally through 

 the beds to the surface. 



Human liemains at Luton. 



Sie, — With respect to my letter of last month announcing the discovery 

 of two human skeletons in the brick-earth at Luton, subsequent careful 



