42 THE FOSSIL SLOTH AT BIG BONE CAVE, TENIs\ [Jan. 15, 



The record of these bones is, therefore, very different from that 

 of animal remains dug out of the rock shelters of Europe, or from 

 that of specimens derived from any layer of caked human rubbish 

 where savages have been wont to take subterranean refuge. Men 

 certainly did not bring them into the cave. Frost iiad never 

 reached them. Neither would change of temperature have affected 

 them where they appeared to have rested in the dry earth in an un- 

 changeably cool air since the time of their deposition. 



Let us describe this place. The roof has expanded over several 

 branching alcoves, partitioned head high by screens of eroded rock. 

 Mysterious crevices in the ceiling rise above us beyond the reach of 

 candle light. There are no stalactites and we feel no trace of damp- 

 ness. The severe outside heat of the Southern spring has been re- 

 duced to a dry and cool subterranean temperature of fifty-five degrees 

 Fahrenheit. Where a flanking screen narrows the gallery to a width 

 of three and four feet, the earth is soft and mealy under foot and 

 covers the whole floor, rising in a cloud of dust when disturbed by 

 a kick. This floor deposit proves on examination to consist of a 

 noxious and volatile mantle of dry, loose excrements, mixed with 

 vegetable remains, covering up and spoiling by its intermixture the 

 nitrous earth resting in lumps beneath it, and thus sufficiently 

 explaining why, as far as saltpetre digging was concerned, that part 

 of the cave had never been disturbed. 



To further examine this floor, later to search the surrounding 

 alcoves, and to discover upon several ledges shoulder high a series 

 of ancient water-made holes, large as stove-pipes, down which nuts, 

 leaves, grass and dung had slid, was to explain the existence of the 

 rubbish at that point. The spot had long been and probably was 

 still a den of busy cave rats, who with porcupines, reaching the 

 gallery not by the outer cave entrance but by the air holes described, 

 had brought thither tlieir vegetable food and trophies from the outer 

 world. Though none of the conspicuous nests of dry grasses and 

 moss loosely interwoven, such as I had previously observed lying on 

 the floor of a rat cave on the New river in Virginia, were seen, 

 several wads of moss, found later in the rubbish, seemed to indicate 

 that the Neotoma magister had nested there at some time before the 

 visitation of the cavern by saltpetre diggers. Once again let us say 

 that we were directly upon the cave path, where back and forth 

 over the dusty manure all footsteps of all saltpetre hunters, all 

 white men, all Indians, choosing to penetrate deeper into the 



