Part 6

The degradation of a cliff, either suddenly or gradually, might throw a vast quantity of fragments into a rapid stream, and cause a deposit of gravel of considerable breadth and thickness in a comparatively short period of time,--say a century or two.

Sir Charles Lyell has adduced examples of very rapid formation of certain stony deposits, which should make us cautious how we assert that such and such a thickness must have required a vast number of years. In one of them there is a thickness of 200 or 300 feet of travertine of recent deposit, while in another, a solid mass thirty feet thick was deposited in about twenty years. There are countless places in Italy where the formation of limestone may be seen, as also in Auvergne and other volcanic districts.

From these and similar considerations it seems to me by no means unreasonable that the four thousand years which elapsed between the Creation and the commencement of Western European history should have been amply sufficient for many of those geological operations whose results are seen in what are known as the later Tertiary deposits,--the crag, the drift, the cavern-accumulations, and the like. And, as a corollary to this, that the great extinct Mammalia may have extended into this period, and thus have been contemporary with man, for a greater or less duration, according to the species; some, probably, having been extinguished at a very early period of the era, while others lived on to the time I have named, or even later.

But have we nothing better for this conclusion than an assumption of the possibility, and a more or less probable conjecture? Yes; we have some facts of interest to warrant it, or I should not have ventured to introduce the subject in this work. There are facts,--besides the admixture of human workmanship with the animal remains in undisturbed deposits--direct evidence, not altogether shadowy, of the co-existence of the extinct animals with living men.

And first, I would mention some circumstances bearing analogy to the exhumation of the fresh Pachyderms of Siberia. Some years ago, a portion of the leg of an Irish Elk, so-called, (Megaceros hibernicus,) with a part of the tendons, skin, and hair upon it, was dug up with other remains from a deposit on the estate of H. Grogan Morgan, Esq., of Johnstown Castle, Wexford, and is now in that gentleman's possession. This leg was exhibited, and formed the subject of a lecture at the time by Mr Peile, veterinary surgeon, Dublin.

It has been ascertained that the marrow in some of the bones blazes like a candle; that the cartilage and gelatine, so far from having been destroyed, were not apparently altered by time. Archdeacon Maunsell actually made soup of the bones, and presented a portion thereof to the Royal Dublin Society (whether they enjoyed it I have not heard; it must have been "a little high," I fear). They are frequently used by the peasantry for fuel. On the occasion of the rejoicings for the victory at Waterloo, a bonfire was made of these bones, and it was observed that they gave out as good a blaze as those of horses, often used for similar purposes.

Pepper, in his "History of Ireland," states that the ancient Irish used to hunt a very large black deer, the milk of which they used as we do that of the cow, and the flesh of which served them for food, and the skin for clothing. This is a very remarkable record; and is confirmed by some bronze tablets found by Sir William Betham, the inscriptions on which attested that the ancient Irish fed upon the milk and flesh of a great black deer.

According to the "Annals of the Four Masters," Niel Sedamin, a king of Ireland before the Christian era, was so called because "the cows and the female deer were alike milked in his reign." The art of taming the wild deer and converting them into domestic cattle is said to have been introduced by Flidisia, this monarch's mother. Deer are said to have been used to carry stones and wood for Codocus when his monastery was built, as also to carry timber to build the castle of a king of Connaught. These may have been red deer, but as there is good proof that the giant deer was really domesticated, it seems more likely that such offices should have been performed by the latter than by the former.

An interesting letter from the Countess of Moira, published in the "Archæologia Britannica," gives an account of a human body found in gravel under eleven feet of peat, soaked in the bog-water; it was in good preservation, and completely clothed in antique garments of deer-hair, conjectured to be that of the Giant Elk.

A skull of the same animal has been discovered in Germany in an ancient drain, together with several urns and stone-hatchets. And in the museum of the Royal Dublin Society there exists a fossil rib bearing evident token of having been wounded by some sharp instrument which remained long infixed in the wound, but had not penetrated so deep as to destroy the creature's life. It was such a wound as the head of an arrow, whether of flint or of metal, would produce.

In the year 1846, a very interesting corroboration of the opinion long held by some that the great broad-horned Deer was domesticated by the ancient Irish, was given by the discovery of a vast collection of bones at Lough Gûr, near Limerick. The word Gûr is said to mean "an assemblage," so that the locality is "the Lake of the Assemblage," commemorating perhaps the gathering of an army or some other host at the spot. In the midst of the lake is an island, which is described as being so completely surrounded with bones and skulls of animals "that one would think the cattle of an entire nation must have been slaughtered to procure so vast an assemblage."

The skulls are described as belonging to the following animals:--The giant deer (females); a deer of inferior size; the stag; another species of stag; the fallow deer; the broad-faced ox; the hollow-faced ox; the long-faced ox; another species of ox; the common short-horned ox; the goat; and the hog.

The principal points of interest centred in the Giant Deer or so-called Irish Elk. The skulls of these, as of all the larger animals, "were broken in by some sharp and heavy instrument, and in the same manner as butchers of the present day slaughter cattle for our markets, and in many cases the marrow-bones were broken across, as if to get at the marrow."

Of course, if this was indubitable, the conclusion was inevitable, that the Giant Deer was not only contemporary with man, but was domesticated by him with other quadrupeds, and used for food. Professor Owen, however, contended that the skulls of the Giant Deer were not females but males, from which the horns had been forcibly removed, and that the holes in the foreheads were made by the violent wrenching off of the horns tearing away a portion of the frontal bone from which they grew.

In reply to this opinion, Mr H. D. Richardson of Dublin, whose personal acquaintance with the relics of this noble species is peculiarly extensive, shewed that certain variations of proportion on which the learned Professor relied to prove the skulls to be male, were of no such value, individual animals presenting great discrepancies in these respects: that the total absence of cornuous peduncles from the sides of the forehead, and of the elevated bony ridge, conclusively proved the sex to be female, which was permanently destitute of horns; and that in no case could it be said that the ridge was forced away, since the violence was confined to a small hole in the centre of the forehead.

To put the matter to test, Mr Richardson experimented on two perfect male skulls. In the one instance the force was applied to the beam of the horns, and the result was their fracture where they are united to the peduncles. In the other case the force was applied to the peduncles themselves, to ascertain whether it was possible to wrench them and the ridge away from the face, when the consequence was, that the skull was completely riven asunder. Indeed to any one who looks at the position of the horns in this animal, and their implantation, it must be self-evident that their violent removal must tear away the entire forehead, and not leave a central hole. Mr Edward Newman who subsequently examined the specimens speaks decidedly on this point:--"I have not the least hesitation in expressing my firm conviction that the fractures were the result of human hands, and were the cause of the death of the animals. These two fractured skulls correspond too exactly with each other, and with that of a bullock with which I compared them, to have resulted from accident: the edges of the fractures wore the appearance of having been coeval with the interment or submergence of the skulls, and presented a very strikingly different appearance from a fracture recently made, and which I had the opportunity of examining. There were several skulls of the male of the same species, one bearing enormous antlers, but none exhibiting the slightest trace of frontal fracture."

A circumstance of much importance is that these skulls were found in company with those of many well-known domestic animals, as the ox, the goat, and the hog. These skulls were similarly fractured. As it is evident that their demolition was produced by the butcher's pole-axe, why not that of the elk-skulls?

"At the first cursory glance, it may appear somewhat strange that the skulls of the males should invariably have been found entire, and that even the recent discovery at Lough Gûr should form no exception.

"I do not, however, find any difficulty here. In the first place, we may fairly suppose that males, like our bulls, were not equally prized as food. In the second place, the size, as well as the position of the antlers, would render it next to an impossibility to give the desired blow with the pole-axe. In the third place, the greater strength and thickness of the skull would almost to a certainty render the blow unavailing; and in the fourth place, supposing the females domesticated, and the occasional tenants of sheds and other buildings, we may well imagine that the males were excluded from such buildings by the enormous size of their antlers. Perhaps a few only of the males, as in our cattle, were suffered to become adult, one male sufficing for many females. Perhaps the males were allowed free range, the females only being permitted at stated seasons to accompany them. In fine, the more we investigate probabilities, the more we reason from present experience and knowledge, the less difficulty shall we find in the way of believing the gigantic deer of Ireland an animal coeval with man and subservient to his uses."

In a communication subsequently made to the Zoologist by Mr Richardson, he gives the following additional evidence:--"In the collection of the late Mr Johnston, of Down, which had been left by his uncle, an attorney, and in which everything was labelled with the accuracy and precision of that profession, is a small brass spear, with a piece of wood still in the socket, with a label, stating it to have been found in a marl-pit, among the bones of a deer. An excise-officer told me that he saw, found in a marl-pit, at Mentrim in Meath, the skeleton of a deer, and a man, and a long knife: the latter, I believe, is rather a short sword, now, I think, in the collection of Mr Petrie, of Dublin, who told me that some such tradition had accompanied it into his possession.... Dr Martin informs me that on the banks of the river Suir, near Portland, Waterford, and on nearly every farm, are found, near springs, spaces of frequently seventy feet in diameter, consisting of stones, broken up as if for roads, and lying together in a mass. These stones were evidently purposely broken, and all much of one size, and are charred. These spaces are many feet in depth. The tradition respecting them is current among the peasantry, that here in olden time, a great deer was killed and baked in these stone-pits, the stones having been previously heated like a kiln, and they also distinguish the animal as the 'Irish Elk.' These places are called in Irish by a name signifying the 'Buck's Den.'"

From all these testimonies combined, can we hesitate a moment in believing that the Giant Deer was an inhabitant of Ireland since its colonisation by man? It seems to me that its extinction cannot have taken place more than a thousand years ago. Perhaps at the very time that Cæsar invaded Britain the Celts in the sister isle were milking and slaughtering their female elks, domesticated in their cattlepens of granite, and hunting the proud-antlered male with their flint arrows and lances. It would appear, that the mode of hunting him was to chase and terrify him into pools and swamps, such as the marl-pits then were; that, having thus disabled him in the yielding bogs, and slain him, the head was cut off, as of too little value to be worth the trouble of dragging home; that the under jaws and tongue were cut off; and that frequently the entire carcase was disjointed on the spot, the best parts only being removed. This would account for the so frequent occurrence of separate portions of the skeleton, and especially of skulls, in the bog-earth. No doubt so large an animal would not long survive in a state of freedom, after an island so limited in extent as Ireland became peopled throughout; and supposing the females to have been domesticated, it is quite conceivable that the difficulty or even danger of capturing or domesticating the males, may have caused the species soon to become extinct in captivity, when it no longer continued to exist in a wild state. Thus we may perhaps account for the certainly remarkable fact that no native Irish name has been recognised as belonging to it;--remarkable, because the Irish tongue is particularly rich in distinctive names for natural objects. There exists a very curious ancient poem in that language which professes to enumerate the whole fauna of the island. It is founded on the legend that Fian MacCumhaill was made prisoner by Cormac MacArt, king of Erinn; that the victor promised to give him freedom on condition that, as a ransom, a pair of each wild animal found in Ireland were brought before him on the green of Tara. Cailte MacRonain, the foster-brother of the captive general undertook the task, and succeeded in bringing the collection before the king within a twelvemonth; and in the poem, he is supposed to narrate to St Patrick the detail and result of his enterprise. Of this poem, which is considered to be as early as the ninth century, the reader may like to see the following translation by Mr Eugene Curry, containing the zoological portion:--

"I then went forth to search the lands, To see if I could redeem my chief, And soon returned to noble Tara, With the ransom that Cormac required.

"I brought with me the fierce Geilt, And the tall Grib with talons, And the two Ravens of Fid-dá-Beann, And the two Ducks of Loch Saileann.

"Two Foxes from Sliabh Cuilinn, Two Wild Oxen from Burren, Two Swans from the dark wood of Gabhran, And two Cuckoos from the wood of Fordrum.

"Two Toghmalls from Fidh-Gaibhle, Which is by the side of the two roads, And two Otters after them, From the brown-white rock of Dobhar.

"Two Gulls from Tralee hither, Two Ruilechs from Port Lairge (Waterford), Four Snags from the River Brosna, Two Plovers from the rock of Dunán.

"Two Echtachs from the lofty Echtghe, Two Thrushes from Letter Longarie, Two Drenns from Dun Aife, The two Cainches of Corraivte.

"Two Herons from the hilly Corann, The two Errfiachs of Magh Fobhair, The two Eagles of Carrick-na-Cloch, Two Hawks from the wood of Caenach.