1822.] Bones discovered in a Cave at Kirkdale, in Yorkshire. 177 
out, and fled for safety to the hills ; and if absent, they could by 
no possibility have returned to it from the higher levels: that 
they did so perish on the Continent is obvious, from the disco- 
very of their bones in the diluvial gravel of Germany, as well as 
inthe caves. The same circumstance will also explain the reason 
why there are no bones found on the outside of the Kirkdale 
cave, as described by Busbequius on the outside of the hyznas’ 
dens in Anatolia; for every thing that lay without on the ante- 
diluvian surface, must have been swept far away, and scattered 
by the violence of the diluvian waters ; and there is no reason for 
believing that hyenas, or any other animals whatever, have 
occupied the den at any period subsequent to that catastrophe. 
Although the evidence to prove the cave to have been inha- 
bited as 2 den by successive generations of hyzenas, appears thus 
direct, it may be as well to consider what other hypotheses may 
be suggested, to explain the collection of bones assembled in it. 
1. lt may be said, that the various animals had entered the 
cave spontaneously to die, or had fled into it as a refuge from 
some general convulsion: but the diameter of the cave, as has 
been mentioned before, compared with the bulk of the elephant 
and rhinoceros, renders this solution impossible as to the larger 
animals ; and with respect to the smaller, we can imagine no 
circumstances that would collect together, spontaneously, ani- 
mals of such dissimilar habits as hyenas, tigers, bears, wolves, 
foxes, horses, oxen, deer, rabbits, water-rats, mice, weasels, and 
birds. , 
2. It may be suggested that they were drifted in by the waters 
of a flood: if so, either the carcases floated in entire; or the 
bones alone were drifted in after separation from the flesh: in 
the first of these cases, the larger carcases, as we have already 
stated, could not have entered at all; and of the smaller ones, 
the cave could not have contained a sufficient number to supply 
1-20th part of the teeth and bones; moreover, the bones would 
not have been broken to pieces, nor in different stages of decay. 
And had they been washed in by a succession of floods, we 
should have hada succession of beds of sediment and stalactite, 
and the cave would have been filled up by the second or third 
repetition of such an operation as that which introduced the 
single stratum of mud, which alone occurs in it. On the other 
hypothesis, that they were drifted in after separation from the 
flesh, they would have been mixed with gravel, and at least 
slightly rolled on their passage ; and it would still remain to be 
shown by what means they were split and broken to pieces, and 
the disproportion created which exists between the numbers of 
the teeth andbones. They could not have fallen in through the 
fissures ; for these are closed upwards in the substance of the 
rock, and do not reach to the surface. 
The third, and only remaining hypothesis that occurs to me is, 
that they were dragged in for food by the hyenas, who caught 
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