142 HY ENA. 
jecting, like the legs of pigeons through a pie crust, into 
the void space above, have become thinly covered with 
stalagmitic drippings, whilst their lower extremities have 
no such incrustation, and have simply the mud adhering 
to them in which they have been imbedded ; an horizontal 
crust of stalagmite, about an inch thick, crosses the middle 
of these bones, and retains them firmly in the position 
they occupied at the bottom of the cave. A large flat 
plate of stalagmite, corresponding, in all respects, with 
the above description, and containing three long bones, 
fixed so as to form almost a right angle with the plane of 
the stalagmite, is in the collection of the Rev. Mr. Smith, 
of Kirby Moorside. The same gentleman has also, among 
many other valuable specimens, a fragment of the thigh- 
bone of an Elephant, which is the largest I have seen from 
this cave. 
“The effect of the loam and stalagmite in preserving 
the bones from decomposition, by protecting them from all 
access of atmospheric air, has been very remarkable ; some 
that had lain uncovered in the cave for a long time before 
the introduction of the loam, were in various stages of 
decomposition, but, even in these, the further progress of 
decay appears to have been arrested as soon as they be- 
came covered with it, and, in the greater number, little 
or no destruction of their form, and scarcely any of their 
substance, has taken place. I have found, on immersing 
fragments of these bones in an acid, till the phosphate and 
carbonate of lime were removed, that nearly the whole 
of their original gelatine has been preserved. Analogous 
cases of animal remains preserved from decay by the pro- 
tection of similar diluvial mud, occur on the coast of Essex, 
near Walton, and at Lawford, near Rugby, in Warwick- 
shire; here the bones of the same species of Elephant, 
