188 Rev. Mr. Buckland’s Account of Fosstl Teeth and [Avey 
many parts it was totally wanting both on the roof and surface 
of the mud and subjacent floor. Great portion of this crust had 
been destroyed in digging up the mud to extract the bones; it 
still remaimed, 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 a mass of this kind which had 
been accumulated so high as to obstruct the passage, so that a 
man could not enter tiil it had been dug away. 
These horizontal incrustations have been formed by the water 
which, trickling down the sides, was forced to ooze off laterally 
as soon as it came into contact with the mud; in other parts, 
where it fell in drops from the roof, stalagmitic accumulations 
have been raised on its surface, some of which are very large, 
but more commonly they are of the size and shape of a cow’s 
pap, a name which the workmen have applied to them. There 
is no alternation of mud with any repeated beds of stalactite, but 
simply a partial deposit of the latter on the floor beneath it; and 
it was chiefly in the lower part of the sediment above described, 
and in the stalagmitic matter beneath it, that the animal remains 
were found : its substance contains no black earth or admixture 
of animal matter, except an infinity of extremely minute particles 
of undecomposed bone. In the whole extent of the cave, only 
a very few large bones have been discovered that are tolerably 
perfect; most of them are broken into small angular fragments 
and chips, the greater part of which lay separately in the mud, 
while others were wholly or partially invested with stalactite ; 
and some of the latter united with masses of still smaller frag- 
ments, and cemented by the stalactite, so as to form an osseous 
breccia, of which I have specimens. 
The effect of this mud in preserving the bones from decompo- 
sition has been very remarkable ; some that had lain along time 
before its introduction were in various stages of decomposition ; 
but even in these, the further progress of decay appears to have 
been arrested by 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 the preservative powers of 
diluvial mud occur on the coast of Essex, near Walton, and at 
Lawford, near Rugby, in Warwickshire. Here the bones of the 
same species of elephant, rhinoceros, and other diluvial animals 
occur in a state of freshness and freedom from decay, nearly 
equal to those in the cave at Kirkdale, and this from the same 
cause, viz, their having been protected from the access of atmo- 
spheric air, or the percolation of water, by the argillaceous 
matrix in which they have been imbedded ; while similar bones 
