MENDIP BONE CAVERNS. 29 



the lathe into boxes and trays ; but the fossil wood from 

 Portland could not be so treated. It is mineralized. Like 

 the Saurian remains, it belongs to a geological period far 

 remote in the histoiy of the earth — to the Oolite and Lias 

 formations. After being exposed to the action of powerful 

 acids, all the liine in these Mendip bones has been dis- 

 persed, and a portion even of the animal gelatine has been 

 obtained, thus clearly proving that the bones, with which 

 we are novv concerned, belong to what, in geological lan- 

 guage is termed a recent period, having been deposited in, 

 or covered over with, the detritus from the troubled 

 waters of the very last epoch of great change which this 

 portion of the earth has known. 



Some havc thought that as these bones belong to ani- 

 mals which have never, in the memory of man, been 

 known to inhabit these climes, they must have been 

 brought here from a distant land, and that the animals 

 never lived here. This appears to be the prevailing opin- 

 ion among those who are unaccustomed to the modes of 

 scientific investigation which systematic geology has un- 

 folded ; but to any one who carefully examines the bones 

 themselves, and takes into consideration the circumstances 

 in which they occur in the bone caverns, and the fact that 

 in other caverns in the district, open to accumulations from 

 the same cause, no animal remains have been found, the 

 supposition that these bones were drifted in by the waters 

 of the deluge cannot for a moment be enter tained. If you 

 examine the specimens in our Museum, or those in the in- 

 valuable collection made by Mr. Beard, Banwell, you 

 cannot fail to be convinced that these are not the remains 

 of animals brought from a distance, but of animals that 

 were born and bred, and lived and died in the neighbour- 

 hood. Thus, in these collections, you will sec the jaws of 

 a tigcr in the füll vigour of youth, the teeth of which are 



