Bufkland's R('liqui<jE, Diluinana;. 339 



which expands and contracts irregularly, from twy to seven t'ect 

 in breadth, and from two to fourteen in height ; the roof and floor 

 are composed of regular horizontal strata of limestone, but in the 

 interior the former is studded with stalactite, and the floor covered 

 with a loamy sediment, of the average depth of about one foot, 

 and concealing the actual floor of the cavern ; the surface of this 

 sediment was generally smooth and level. 



Above this mud, on advancing some way into the cave, the roof and 

 sides were found to be partially studded and cased over with a coating of 

 stiilactite, which was most abundant in those parts where the transverse 

 fissures occur, but in small quanlHy where the rock is compact and devoid 

 of fissures. Thus far it resembled the stalactite of ordinary caverns ; but, 

 on tracing it downwards to the surface of the mud, it was there found to 

 turn off at right angles from the sides of the cave, and form above the mud a 

 plate, or crust, shooting across like ice on the surfaue of water, or cream 

 on a pan of milk. The thickness and quantity of this crust varied with that 

 (uund on the roof and sides, being most abundant, and covering the mud 

 entirely where there was much stalactite on the sides, and more scanty in 

 those places where the roof or sides presented but little : in many parts it 

 was totally wanting, both on the roof and surface of the mud and of the 

 subjacent floor. Great portion of this crust had been destroyed in digging 

 up the mud, to extract the bones, before my arrival ; it still remained, 

 however, projecting partially in some few places along the sides ; and in 

 one or two, where it was very thick, it formed, when I visited the cave a 

 continuous bridge over the mud entirely across from one side to the other. 

 In the outer portion of the cave, there was originally amass of this kind, 

 which had been accumulated so high as to obstruct the passage, so that a 

 inau could not enter till it had been dug away. 



It deserves particular remark, that the mud and stalactite 

 never alternate, but that there is simply a partial deposit of the 

 latter on the floor beneath it, in which, and in the lower part of 

 the earthy sediment, the animal remains were chiefly found. In 

 the whole extent of the cave, very few large bones have been dis- 

 covered that are tolerably perfect ; most of them are fragmented, 

 and some into very small pieces, cemented by stalagmite, so as to 

 form an osseous breccia. 



In some few places, where the mud was shallow, and the heaps of teeth 

 and bones considerable, parts of the latter were ekvated some inches 

 above the surface of the mud and its stalagmitic crust ; and the upper ends 

 of the bones thus projecting, like the legs of pigeons through a pie-crust, 

 into the void space above, have become thinly covered with stalagmitic 

 drippings, wlii^t their lower extremities have no such incrustation, and 

 have simply the mud adhering to them in which they had 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. 



The bones already discovered in the Kirkdale cave are referable 

 to about twenty-three species of animals, namely, hyana, tiger, 

 bear, wolf, fox, weasel ; elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, 

 horse ; ox, and three species of deer ; hare, rabbit, water rat, 

 and mouse ; raven, pigeon, lark, a small duck, and an unknown 

 bird, about the size of a thrush. These were strewed all over 

 the cave, like a dog-kennel, those of the larger animals, mingled 

 with the rest, even in the inmost and smallest recesses; many of _ 

 them gnawed, and the number of teeth and solid bones of the 

 tarsus and carpus more than twenty times as great as could have 



