TO THE COURT OF AVA. 
25 
formed, we supposed to have belonged to the 
fossil elephant, or mammoth. The natives had 
also brought us in a large quantity of petrified 
shells : these, it is singular, were all of one de¬ 
scription,—-a bivalve shell about the size of a 
cockle.* 
Anxious to see the fossil bones and shells in 
their situations, Dr. Wallich and I proceeded 
this morning in the same direction in which I 
had travelled on the 28th. After proceeding 
as far as the hill of Man-lan, we took a north¬ 
erly direction among the hills and ravines, until 
our Burman guides brought us to a hill about 
sixty or seventy feet above the level of the dry 
bed of a brook, which was immediately below it, 
and probably about one hundred and fifty above 
the level of the Irawadi. Not far from the top 
of this a few fossil shells were shown to us, and 
we proceeded to dig up the ground. After re¬ 
moving a very superficial soil, we came at once 
to a bed of blue moist clay, which contained an 
immense quantity of shells, some broken, but 
many entire. The greater number were filled 
with the blue clay of the bed in which they 
lay ; but a few with calcareous matter, which 
last had been the case with all those brought 
* This passage and others, respecting these remarkable fossil 
remains, are allowed to stand nearly as originally written in my 
Journal ; but for an accurate and scientific account of both, I 
can refer with satisfaction and confidence to the Appendix. 
