MENDIP BONE OAVEBNS. 35 



Museum, aud that at Mr. Bearcl's, contain many large 

 vertebrre, ribs, thigh bones, and humeri, togetber with 

 tusks and teetb. Tbe more durable portions, such as tbc 

 teeth, are found in larger numbers in proportion, probably 

 because the softer bones were eitber devoured, or bave 

 perished from decay. Wbether tbe animals while living 

 resorted to these caverns, or wbether their dead carcases 

 were dragged thither by beasts of prey, I do not pretend 

 to deterinine, but the general character of the bones, 

 togetber with the masses of a soft fatty substance, which I 

 have myself found, like wbat is technically called adipocere, 

 and which is supposed to be produced by the decomposi- 

 tion of the flesh of animals, clearly proves, I think, that 

 some of the animals at least lived, and that portions of 

 others were devoured in the caverns, at a time anterior to 

 that period of great change, during which the original en- 

 trances were blocked up, and the bone beds themselves 

 more or less covered with a deposit of earth and loose 

 nibble. 



It is unnecessary to enter upon a detailed account of the 

 precise physical and dynamic forces by which so great an 

 overflow of waters might have been produced. The crust 

 of the earth bears undoubted evidence of greater convub 

 sions than would be needed to effect such a result. Suffi- 

 cient to State generally that it must have been by the 

 agency of moving waters, bearing into and depositing on 

 the entrances of these caverns stones and earthy matter. 

 And as the corners of the rocks in the interior are sharp, 

 and not rounded and smooth, as you will always find them 

 in caverns on the sea-shore accessible to the tide, it is evi- 

 dent that these caverns have not been subject to the 

 long-continued action of water in motion, b:;t were sub- 

 merged by a sudden and temporary flood. 



