lation," has received its due share of attention from the most eminent writers that have yet occupied themselves with the study of the physical structure of the earth.

With respect to the matters at issue between Dr Fleming and myself, as it appears to me that his objections arise chiefly from a mistaken or imperfect view of the facts on which his arguments are founded, I beg to submit to his consideration, and that of the readers of your Journal, the following points, on which I consider his ideas to be erroneous; forbearing to enter into the arguments he has derived from them, since, if the facts are misconceived, his conclusions will, of course, follow the fate of the premises from which they are deduced.

1. Dr Fleming objects, that the distinctions I have drawn between Post-diluvian and Diluvian deposits,-or, in other words, between local deposits, which can be referred to existing causes, and those more extensive collections of waterworn detritus, which have resulted from some single, and transient, and universal inundation of the surface of our planet, are not sufficiently established. And,

2. He thinks the remains of animals that occur in what I consider the deposits of this inundation, may be referred to genera and species that have gradually perished by local accidents, or been extirpated by man.

To the first of these points I shall offer no other reply than to refer him to the distinctions between alluvium and diluvium, as stated by Cuvier in the Introduction to his History of the Pachydermata, tom. 1.; the slightest perusal of which cannot, I think, fail to convince the reader that it is utterly impossible to explain the phenomena which I have called Diluvial, by any causes at present in operation.

I would also refer to the luminous paper of Sir James Hall, in the Edinburgh Philosophical Transactions, 1813, on the evidences of an inundation afforded by the Corstorphine Hills, and other summits, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh; and to the accurate and practical distinctions drawn by Mr Bald, in the third volume of the Wernerian Memoirs, p. 123, and fourth volume, p. 58., between the old and the new alluvial covers along the east coast, and in other parts of Scotland; and have only to add, that my own observations in that district, during the last summer, enable me to bear testimony to the fidelity of description both these gentlemen have maintained in the publications alluded to. It is needless here to repeat the evidences of diluvial action offorded by deposits

of loam and gravel, in situations to which no river could have ever brought them, which I have collected in the chapter following, p. 185 of the first edition of my Reliquiæ Diluvianæ. I shall deem it sufficient to subjoin the following extract from a foreign scientific journal, which shews that the distinctions I am contending for, are generally admitted by the best observers of the present time.

"We believe the best geologists of the day agree in limiting the term alluvial, to those deposits which result from causes now in action, and in appropriating the term diluvium to those universal deposits of gravel and loam, to the production of which no cause at present is adequate, and which can only be referred to the waters of a sudden and transient deluge. This gravel and loam are always confusedly mixed together, and are thus distinguished from the older deposits of sand and gravel which occur in regular alternating beds. The ablest writers in Europe now adopt these distinctions, and would no more think of confounding them, than to describe, under the same name, gypsum and limestone."*

With regard to the second proposition, I think that, to a certain point, Dr Fleming's opinions and observations are correct. I fully coincide with him in believing, that the beaver and the wolf, like the roebuck, probably the bear, and the Irish elk, have gradually disappeared, together with the various species of birds, whose expulsion or extirpation he so ably describes, before the arrows of the hunter, and the snares of the agriculturist; but when he proceeds to apply the same explanation to the bones of quadrupeds, imbedded often many fathoms deep in masses of drifted clay and gravel, in situations at or near which no such deposits are at present taking place, or in caves and fissures which have been wholly closed, and whose interior has been often filled with the detritus of rocks introduced by the same sudden and transient inundation, to which alone the existence of the superficial deposits in question can be referred, I feel obliged to object to the application of the principle of gradual extirpation to this part of the subject and appeal to the entire body of phenomena detailed in my Reliquiæ Diluvianæ, in support of my opinion.

But while I thus contend that there is evidence of a sudden and general destruction of animals by a transient inundation

*Review of Reliquiæ Diluvianæ in Silliman's American Journal of Science, vol. viii. No. 2. p. 326.

of the earth's surface, I, at the same time, proceed most willingly with Dr Fleming to apply his method of illustration to the animals inhabiting the earth antecedently to this great aqueous revolution; to explain the phenomena of the den at Kirkdale by the habits of living hyænas, and to argue on the probable history of fossil elephants and hippopotami, from the known habits of those which at present inhabit the banks of the Ganges or the Niger; and without this practice of illusstrating the history of the fossil dead by the study of their living representatives, I could never have arrived at the conclusions I have founded on the evidence of the den at Kirkdale.

I proceed, therefore, to examine, in the order in which he has stated them, some of the propositions advanced by Dr Fleming.

Casc I.-Peat-Bogs.

I agree with Dr Fleming in considering the bones discovered in our peat-bogs; in mud and silt at the mouths of rivers, or within the level of their floods; and in ponds or lakes, and other situations at or near which the formation of aqueous deposits is still going on, to prove that the horse, the ox, the boar, the beaver, and several species of deer, have existed as wild animals in this country since the formation of post-diluvian silt and peat began, and have been gradually extirpated, or domesticated, by man; and I admit this on evidence independent of the documents of history, or the voice of tradition, viz. the fact, that the bones of these animals occur imbedded in the deposits in question.

Case II.-Fresh-Water Marl-Beds under Peat-Bogs. Deposits of this kind, formed at the bottom of shallow lakes and ponds, accumulate, until they arrive so near the surface of the waters, that the growth of peat commences, and often continues so far, that the hollow, which was once a shallow lake, becomes entirely filled up; the basis of the marl-bed, beneath this peat, is sometimes solid rock, and sometimes a bed of that ancient detritus of gravel, clay, or sand, which I have called Diluvium. The animal remains which occur in this fresh-water marl are of post-diluvian origin. Now, with respect to the Irish elk, if the common accounts should prove correct, that it is found in this shell-marl, immediately below the peat, or in the lower regions of the peat itself, it will only add another species to the list of ani

mals that have repeopled this country, since the formation of the diluvium, and which, like our beavers and wild boars, have been extirpated by man; and the high state of preservation of its horns and bones from the bogs of Ireland, when compared with the usually decayed condition of bones from the diluvium, inclines me to favour this opinion. This animal, however, should it prove to be thus recent, will, like the ox and horse, and other species of deer, be common to our diluvial deposits, with those that are post-diluvial; it occurs with elephants and hippopotami in the diluvium, at Walton in Essex, and in the diluvial gravel of Germany, France, &c.* The evidence to prove its more recent existence should, therefore, be carefully attended to, and forms an interesting subject of inquiry.

Case III.-Horns of Rhinoceros in Scotland.

Dr Fleming states, p. 324, "that a specimen of the horn of the fossil rhinoceros, found in one of the marl-pits at the Loch of Forfar,† exists at present in the Edinburgh Museum, and we have been informed by Professor Jameson, that two other examples have occurred in Blair-Drummond moss on the banks of the Forth. It is to be hoped, he adds, that the skulls will yet be procured."

Could the above cases be established, they would be decisive in favour of the theory maintained by Dr Fleming. In my Reliquiæ Diluvianæ, p. 33, I have expressed an opposite opinion, that the horns of the rhinoceros neither have nor are likely to be ever found in a fossil state, unless when preserved in ice. I made it my business, therefore, whilst at Edinburgh, carefully to investigate the cases here alleged to have existed in that neighbourhood, and the following are the results.

Mr David Don informs me that the horn in the Edinburgh Museum was presented by himself and his brother, on the death of their father in the year 1814, to a museum then existing at Dundee, which was shortly after broken up and the contents sold by auction; and that the story of its having been found in the Loch at Forfar, must have been invented either by the auctioneer or the person who bought it of him, and sold it again to the Museum at Edinburgh, at a price propor

* A detailed description of the remarkable skeleton of the Fossil Elk, discovered in the Isle of Man, and now preserved in the Museum at Edinburgh, will be given, by Professor Jameson, in a future number of this Journal. + Vide Wern. Mem. vol. iv. p. 582.

tionate to the increased value that would justly have been attached to it, if it had really been a Scotch fossil.* Mr Don, however, affixed no such history to it when he gave it to the museum at Dundee. In his letter to me on this subject, he says, "It had a long time been in possession of my father, who, I am inclined to believe, obtained it from some friend, whilst he was superintendant of the Royal Botanic Garden at Edinburgh." He adds, "Had it been found in the lake. at Forfar, it is not probable that so remarkable a circumstance should have remained unknown to me, or any of my family." The story of the other two horns of the rhinoceros, said to have been found in the moss of Blair-Drummond, and of which Dr Fleming is anxious, as he well may be, to discover the skulls from whence they were derived, I found to originate in another mistake of a similar kind. Professor. Jameson had been informed of the supposed discovery of these horns by a gentleman of Stirling, who is factor to the estate of Blair-Drummond. I proceeded to Stirling, and found this gentleman to be a man of accurate observation as to the geological structure of this district, and particularly of the peat and alluvial deposits in which these horns were said to have been discovered. But he informed me that he had no personal knowledge of the finding of them; that the discovery was made many years ago by some of his father's workmen, who, together with his father, is now dead; that he believed that the horns were still existing in the House of Blair-Drummond. I applied forthwith to Mr Drummond for further information, and learned from him that there were some years ago two horns of a rhinoceros somewhere about his house, and that they have since been removed to that of his mother in Edinburgh. He further adds, "I know nothing of their history but what my factor tells me, and he seems uncertain whether his father had seen them

*In the recent sale at Fonthill, the public were, in a similar manner, informed, that a vase of rock crystal, submitted to the hammer, was a real topaz; and the authority of Professor Buckland, who had never seen or heard of the gem in question, was advanced in confirmation of the alleged fact.

† Professor Jameson has lately examined these horns, and informs me, "that they differ not in shape from those of the living two-horned rhinoceros; that the fibres at their base exhibit the usual transparency of recent horns, and that the base of one of them is perforated with round sinuous holes, like those made in timber by the Teredo, but smaller." Holes of this kind are not uncommon in recent horns of this animal; they occur in a specimen in the Oxford Musuem, and still retain within them the husk or sheath of some parasitic worms resembling maggots, by which they were produced.