Account of some Fossil Bones 
prevailing rocks and beds of strata in those parts, that 
they will be fonnd lying imbedded either in the upper 
stratum of the secondary, or the lower strata of the ter¬ 
tiary formation ; and not, I think, improbably, in beds 
of shingle, the detritus of the deluge. In this opinion 
I, with some degree of diffidence, venture to differ from 
that of a respected and talented friend of mine, who 
supposes them to be of a much later period, and brought 
down from the mountains by the winter torrents : but, if 
they were thus conveyed from the mountains by the 
waters, the incessant rolling and friction to which they 
would have inevitably been exposed, would not only 
have broken off their finer parts, but would have also 
much battered and worn what remained. In all the 
specimens which I have yet seen, this, however, is not 
the case; for though broken and imperfect, they never 
appeared to have been worn nor battered by friction, 
nor subject in any way to the action of water. 
It has been alleged, that it is “ in situations beyond the 
reach of river deposits that the fossil bones of ancient 
animals are usually found.” Whilst, however (for the 
avoiding of unnecessary argument), I grant this as a 
general rule, I would remark, that I do not for a moment 
suppose that the bones of the Moa are deposited in the 
beds of those rivers in which they have hitherto been met 
with. No ; they show by their appearance that their 
place of concealment is not in water ; and they equally, I 
think, indicate that their deposition has been in places 
effectually excluded from both light and air,—a fact 
which is, in my opinion, incontestably proved by the 
natives never meeting with them but when washed up or 
appearing on the beds of gravel in the rivers. We 
should not forget that the immense Megatherium was 
originally discovered by M. Sellon on the banks of the 
Arapey; and the greater part of an entire skeleton of 
