339 
These remains, as well of the stags as of the oxen, appear to be re- 
ferable to two classes, the unknown and the known ruminants. In 
the first class he places the Irish elk ; the small stag, with slender 
horns, of Etampes ; the stag of Scania ; and the large buffalo of Si- 
beria : in the second class he places the common stag, the common 
roebuck, the aurochs, the ox which seems to have been the wild original 
of our domestic ox, and the buffalo with approximated horns, which is 
analogous with the musk-ox of Canada. Besides these, there appears 
a dubious species, the great deer of La Somme, which much resembles 
the common fallow-deer. 
From what can be determined, with respect to the beds in which 
they are found, the known species are always, he observes, in those 
which are more recent than those in which the unknown species are 
found. This, he says, is certain, at least as to the stags, the roebucks, 
and the oxen, of the valley of La Somme, which are in the loose and 
superficial sands, or in the turf. The aurochs equally appear to be 
found in the alluvial tracts of recent formation, which are yet sus- 
ceptible of augmentation or diminution; and the stags’ horns of 
England have been frequently taken out of rivers. 
As to the unknown species, it must be remarked, he says, that the 
elk of Ireland, although it is necessary to get through the beds cf turf 
to find it, yet it is not in the turf itself, but in the beds beneath it 
the stag of Etampes, found in the sand of La Beauce, was lower than 
the earth deposited from the fresh water, which covers the sand ; and 
lastly, the buffalo of Siberia, accompanying the fossil elephants and 
rhinoceroses, may be supposed to be of the same period, and to be 
enveloped in the same beds. The stag of Scania is the only one of 
the unknown animals which has been said to be found in the turf ; 
but this circumstance, he thinks, requires to be proved. 
The knowledge which we at present possess of the situations in 
which fossils are found is at present so confined, as to give but little 
solidity to the opinions which he here offers. A remark of another 
