He shows that this could not be the result of tumultuous
river-action--the elevation of the valley precluding the possibility
of its receiving a river capable of producing such effects. Moreover,
the remains show no trace of having been water-worn, the edges of the
teeth of the great deer being as sharp as if the animal had died but
yesterday. Mr. Williams thinks that the broken state of the antlers
is due to the "pressure of great masses of ice on the surface of the
clay in which they were embedded, the wide expanse of the palms of the
antlers exposing them to pressure and liability to breakage; and even,
in many instances, when there was 12 or 14 inches in circumference of
solid bone almost as hard and sound as ivory, it was snapped across."
It is remarkable that in this one small bog nearly one hundred heads of
Megaceros have been dug up.
Mr. Williams' observations show us that the Megaceros-beds are
certainly older than the peat-bogs with their buried timber. When he
first informed me of the result of his researches (1880), I did not
believe the Megaceros-beds could be older than the latest cold phase
of the Ice Age. I thought that they were later in date than our last
general _mer de glace_, and I think so still, for they obviously rest
upon its ground-moraine. But since I now recognise that our upper
boulder-clay is not the product of the last glacial epoch, it seems
to me highly probable that the Megaceros-beds are of interglacial
age--that, in short, they occupy the horizon of the interglacial
deposits of north Germany, etc. The appearances described by Mr.
Williams in connection with the "grey clay" seem strongly suggestive of
ice-action. Ballybetagh Bog occurs at an elevation of 800 feet above
the sea, in the neighbourhood of the Three Rock Mountain (1479 feet),
and during the epoch of great valley-glaciers the climatic conditions
of that region must have been severe. But without having visited the
locality in question I should hesitate to say that the phenomena
necessarily point to local glaciation. Probably frost, lake-ice, and
thick accumulations of snow and _névé_ might suffice to account for the
various facts cited by Mr. Williams.
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