on the Distribution of British Animals. 319 
existed or become extinct, and must consider the assumption of 
Dr Fleming respecting them to be altogether gratuitous. 
In this same second memoir, p. S94 . and ^95, I find Dr Fle- 
ming advances facts, in direct contradiction to the demonstrar 
tion in his former paper, that a universal flood had no share in 
the formation of our diluvium, which, in part at least, he found- 
ed, on the asserted absence of marine exuvia^'' in diluvial 
deposits, viz. those I have stated, that marine shells of existing 
species occur in the diluvium of the neighbourhood of Peter- 
head, and in the Paisley Canal, near Glasgow. He also quotes 
other cases of the same kind, e. g. that of recent marine shells, 
discovered by Mr Adamson on the banks of Loch Lomond, &c. ; 
but he makes no allusion to his denial, in his former paper, of 
the existence of such deposits, and I presume could not have 
been aware of facts which so materially affect his argument, at 
the time of his writing the paper in question. At any rate, it^ 
would have been more candid to acknowledge his error, than to" 
leave to me the task of pointing it out, and applying it to my 
advantage in the matter at issue between us. 
I forbear at present to offer any farther remarks on Dr Fle- 
ming’s second memoir, as I should be drawn to greater length 
than the patience of your readers would tolerate, or the limits of 
a Journal, destined to be the vehicle of original communications, 
rather than of controversial discussions, could with propriety 
admit. 
Postscript — I have just been informed by Mr Weaver, that 
he has established, beyond all doubt, the fact of the elk having 
existed as a postdiluvial animal in Ireland. Its bones and horns, 
he says, occur in the Bog of Kilmegan near Dundrum, in the 
county of Down ; they lie at the bottom of the peat between it 
and a bed of shell-marl, resting upon, or being merely im- 
pressed in the marl, which is composed of a bed of fresh-water 
shells, from one to five feet thick, and must have been formed 
while the bog was a shallow lake. In this and other similar 
lakes and swamps, Mr Weaver imagines these animals fled for 
refuge from their enemies, and were drowned in the waters, or 
swallowed up in the morass. 
