446 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Dec, 



from the roof, many of them required blasting in order to their 

 removal, and in some instances it was necessary to blast the masses 

 into which they were by this means divided. One of the blocks 

 measured 1 1 feet long, 5J feet broad, and 2 J feet thick ; hence it 

 contained upwards of 100 cubic feet, and must have weighed fully 

 seven tons. In some cases two or three of them lay one on another 

 and in a few instances were firmly cemented together by a separate 

 cake of stalagmite between each pair ; whilst others lay unconfor- 

 mably, with considerable interspaces. Occasionally what appeared 

 to be a boss or dome of stalagmite proved to be a block, or two or 

 three small blocks of limestone, invested on all sides with a stalag- 

 mite sheet. Certain masses, lying at some distance from a drop 7 

 were without even a trace of stalagmite. 



2nd. Between and beneath these limestone blocks there was a 

 layer of mould of an almost black color. It varied from a few 

 inches to upwards of a foot in depth. 



3rd. Underneath the black soil came a cake of stalagmite 

 breccia, made up of comparatively small fragments of limestone, 

 so very firmly cemented together with carbonate of lime as 

 occasionally required blasting. It was rarely less, but not unfre- 

 quently more, than a foot thick. Everywhere it was firmly at- 

 tached to the walls, and it occasionally extended completely across 

 the chamber. Not unfrequently, however, the centre of the 

 chamber was altogether destitute of this breccia ; in some instances 

 because there is no drip near the apex, in others because it was 

 intercepted by an overlying limestone block. 



4th. The breccia is succeeded by the ordinary reddish cave 

 loam, which contained a large number of limestone fragments, 

 varying in dimensions from bits not larger than sixpences to 

 masses but little smaller than those which lay on the surface. 

 They lie at all angles without anything like symmetrical arrange- 

 ment. In fact the entire deposit is without any approach to 

 stratification — many of the stones are partially encrusted with 

 calcareous matter, and not unfrequently loam, stones, and splinters 

 of bones are cemented by the same substance into a very tough 

 breccia. The presence of a calcareous drip is more or less trace- 

 able everywhere. Hitherto the cave earth has been excavated to 

 the depth of four feet only. How far it extends below this, or 

 what may be beneath it, is at present unknown. Where it is 

 not covered with the stalagmitic breccia, the black soil lies 

 immediately on it, but the line of junction is everywhere sharply 

 defined ; in no instance do the two commingle. 



