Discovery of Remains of Human Art with Bones of Animals. 303 



The large caverns I had visited were considerably below the level 

 of the peat moss, and the stream which flowed through it. A portion 

 of its waters was conveyed by sinks and crevices into the caves, and 

 kept them continually full. There must, however, have been some 

 very small leakage through which, when the stream which supplied 

 the water was cut off, those caverns were, after many years, laid dry. 

 A small mass of unconsolidated peat, sufficiently light to float, 

 must have been conveyed by the water into those caverns. When 

 it arrived at the spot on which the black matter was found, the 

 piece of peat which still floated must have been pressed against the 

 roof of the cavern. Remaining there undisturbed for years, it may 

 have become by decomposition specifically heavier than water, and 

 then have subsided vertically down on the floor to the place on which 

 I found it, leaving in the black spot on the roof the certificate of its 

 former residence. On the other hand, the piece of peat may have 

 retained its power of floating, and only have descended to the floor 

 of the cavern by the slow escape of the water. 



Such circumstances as these ought to induce us to examine with 

 great caution, any instances of the occurrence of works of human art 

 mixed with the remains of animals not yet proved to have been co- 

 existent with man. Accident might have conveyed and hidden in the 

 Mitchelstown caverns, a portion of human dress instead of a patch of 

 peat. It is obvious that under slightly altered circumstances, in- 

 struments formed by man, the bony remains of his frame, or those 

 of other recent animals, might, by still existing causes, be conveyed 

 into deep recesses in the bowels of the earth, and there deposited 

 with the remains of animals of an entirely different geological 

 age. 



Cases might occur in which the water passing in larger quantity 

 would convey into such caverns a quantity of suspended mud, 

 differing in its character at various seasons, and thus silt up the 

 confused relics of distant ages in a regularly stratified deposit. 



It is quite possible that the human remains might thus be 

 enclosed beneath the stalagmitic crust, whilst the more ancient 

 remains were scattered above it, uncovered, or covered by another 

 coat of stalagmite. 



If we suppose the existence of two upper caves, B and C, at dif- 

 ferent heights, each separately communicating with the lowest cave, 

 A, as in fig. 7, then still more remarkable facts might ultimately 

 present themselves to those whom accident should lead to examine 

 the lowest cave. If, for example, the highest of these caves (C) 

 contained only the remains of the extinct races of animals, and the 

 other, or middle cave (B), nothing but those of man and the works 

 of his own hands, the following series of events might occur : — 



1st. A flood directing its course wholly through the middle cave 

 (B), might wash down the fragments of the bones and works of 

 man from that cave, and deposit them on the floor of the lowest 

 cavern (A). 



2nd. In a long series of years, a thick stalagmitic covering might 

 be formed, giving an entire new stony floor to that cavern. 



