LOCAL OCCURRENCES IN NATURAL HISTORY. 
67 
however, be looked upon with very suspicious eyes in such deposits, especially 
where, as in this instance, they approximate to Roman or British places of burial, 
since they may have been slain there for the uses of the camp, or killed and 
buried, as was usual at the funeral of a great chieftain. The same objection of 
course cannot apply to the Rhinoceroses, Elephants, and Hippopotami; and 
though these have been suggested to belong to former denizens of the country, I 
think that probabilities are against it. 
Should the utilitarian feel disposed to smile at this geological bone-grubbing, I 
will just mention an anecdote which shows that it may at any rate be turned to 
some account, though, as I do not profess to be an indicator of final causes, I 
shall not contend that it was ever intended that the bones of noble animals 
should come to be used for such 46 base purposes” at last. My friend Mr. Allies, 
whose diligence in investigation is almost unequalled, and is only rivalled by the 
ingenuity of his hypotheses,* some months since requested the workmen at 
Fleet’s Bank to reserve for him all the bones they might dis-inter at that famous 
animal mausoleum, and a considerable quantity were amassed, pregnant with 
scientific lore and learned disquisition—but alas ! when my friend went for the 
treasure which was to freight his boat with immortality, he learned, to his un¬ 
utterable dismay, from a hind—pale, ghastly, and affrighted as the wretch who 
undrew Priam’s curtains to tell him of the conflagration of Troy—that some 
demon in the shape of a ragman had passed by the previous day, and, in the ab¬ 
sence of the workmen, had captured and bagged (or rather 44 honed ”) the whole 
antediluvian treasure! 
“ Sad Philomel thus—but let similes drop. 
And now that I think on’t, the story may stop.”f 
However, in all probability, these 44 organic remains of a former world,” sold by 
the ragman, and ground down with a mass of others, if not served up on the 
breakfast-table with the miscellaneous ingredients that go, it is said, into the 
composition of our modern bakers’ loaves ;—may at least, used in the manufacture 
of earthenware and china, assist to form a dinner or tea-service, and thus we 
may make our libations from the metamorphosed jaws of a Hysena or Rhinoceros, 
or dine unconsciously upon the re-organized ribs of 44 pre-adamite” Elephants, as 
we are already lighted at our public banquets from the treasured stores of a gas, 
which, once revelling in the atmosphere that surrounded a new-born globe, has 
since lain imprisoned, like the Genii of Eastern fable, for thousands of years 
*See his explanation of the “ tracks” in the Old Red Sandstone, supposed to be those of Horses, 
in the treatise before referred to; as well as his recent brochure On the Causes of Planetary Motion. 
in which he explains a curious experiment. 
+ Goldsmith’s Retaliation. 
K 2 
