254 Mr A. Bry son's Bemarks on a Bone Cave. 



Immediately at the mouth or lowest part of the cave, the bones 

 consisted mostly of those belonging to the larger ruminants. While 

 at the height of three feet, the remains were those of the smaller 

 rodents, so curiously arranged as to attract our particular notice. 



Although the whole mass of rich mould filling up the mouth of 

 the cave, and extending to the height of 10 feet, teems with the re- 

 mains of animals, yet a certain degree of stratification obtains. The 

 skulls of the rat and smaller rodents, are mixed most liberally and 

 promiscuously throughout the whole mass ; not so the scapulas and 

 the lighter bones. These are most curiously congregated in heaps, 

 so that a spadeful could easily be obtained without the slightest ad- 

 mixture of earth, or foreign matter. 



This fact appears easily accounted for, on the supposition that the 

 less specific gravity of these bones made them the peculiar sport of 

 the eddies of the North Esk, seeking a convenient and quiet resting 

 place, only afforded by such a cave, where the waters could cease 

 their troubling. 



This is rendered more probable by a perpendicular rib of the trap 

 projecting before the cave on its western side, and shewing at its 

 base evident traces of attrition. Having laboured for some hours 

 in this Golgotha, searching for varieties of bone, we were rewarded by 

 the discovery of an inner cave, on a level with the entrance of the first. 

 This cave was of small dimensions, and had, before the deposition 

 of the bony debris, been closed by a detached piece of rock from 

 above. In this small chamber we could find no traces of bones — a 

 slight unctuous slime covered its floor, stuck full of the buccinum, 

 mytilus, and patella. On the walls these shells were still adherent 

 to the slimy coating as if the sea had just left them in situ. 



The only indications of humanity discovered in the bony debris 

 was a vertebral bone of an ox, which bore evident traces of having 

 been sawn or ground flat ; also an amulet formed rudely from the 

 leg bone of the ox. 



When Mr Walker commenced his operations for the removal of 

 the soil, he found, about six feet above the entrance, four chain- 

 plate bolts, evidently belonging to a small craft of about 100 tons ; 

 lying near these he found the remains of an iron harpoon or spear, 

 all sufficiently rusted to be interesting to an antiquary. 



The secondary cave discovered below the bony debris, and only 

 containing the remains of marine mollusca, seems certainly to indi- 

 cate the presence of the German Ocean, 12 feet above its present 

 highest spring tide. The bony deposit would seem to indicate a 

 change of the Esk's course and a considerable addition to its waters, 

 as this fluviatile deposit from the bottom of the cave up to the last 

 indication of the river's action, is nearly 19 feet above the present 

 level of the Esk. That the proof of change in the course of the Esk 

 is not entirely dependent on this necrologic deposit is proved from 

 the following quotation from the statistical account of Scotland. 



