IRISH ELK AND MAN. 
295 
this incision was in a position where the teeth of an animal could not 
possibly have made the hole. Mr. Denny was inclined to agree that 
the incision had been made by the head of an arrow. Mr. Denny 
chronicled a great number of instances of the discovery of the Irish 
elk in the peat bogs of Ireland as well as this country, and in 
association with them, there were frequently found evidences of the 
apparent co-existence of man. He quotes the opinion, however, of 
Dr. Ball, of Dublin, who thinks the mere association of human 
implements with the bones of the deer is no proof of their having 
been contemporary, but accounts for the circumstances in this way :— 
With the ancient Irish it was a well-known mode of stratification to 
build island forts in valleys where a stream ran, surrounded by a 
stockade of wood, and he supposes they would commence operations 
by first driving down the wooden posts or palings. Into this was 
then thrown the earth derived from the formation of a ditcli around 
tlie whole, which may have been accompanied by heads and bones of 
the giant deer previously embedded. No doubt, whilst this may 
have been done, various implements of domestic or warlike use 
belonging to the people who erected the fortifications, would be 
accidentally accumulated, along with the matter thrown into the 
centre. In course of time the whole structure decayed, the mound 
crumbled and fell, the elk bones being mixed along with the imple- 
ments of human construction. Thus they would be eventually found 
associated, apparently furnishing conclusive evidence of their co-ex- 
istence. The Rev. J. G. Gumming considered that in the Isle of Man 
the elk existed at the same time as man, but was almost immediately 
exterminated. Mr. Denny concluded his endeavour to trace the 
megaceros down to the human era, by stating that he did not con- 
sider that man and the megaceros lived on the earth long together, 
but, on the contrary, he supposed that the last stragglers only, which 
escaped extermination by physical changes and causes, may have 
continued to exist down to man's first appearance on the British Isles ; 
and as precisely similar views regarding the extinction of the dinornis 
in New Zealand had been advocated by Dr. Mantel in one of his last 
communications to the Geological Society, there needs no apology in 
concluding with his remarks when speaking of the Moabeds: — "Both 
