178 Rev. Mr. Buckland’s Account of Fossil Teethand [Sert. 
their prey in the immediate vicinity of their den; and as they 
could not have dragged it home from any very great distances, 
it: follows that the animals they fed on all lived and died not far 
from the spot where theirremains are found. 
The accumulation of these bones then appears to have been a 
long process going on during a succession of years, while all the 
animals in question were natives of this country. The general 
dispersion of similar bones through the diluvian gravel of high 
latitudes, over great part of the northern hemisphere, shows that 
the period in which they inhabited these regions, was that 
immediately preceding the formation of this gravel, and that they 
perished by the same waters-which produced it. M. Cuvier has 
moreover ascertained, that the fossil elephant, rhinoceros, hippo- 
potamus, and hyzna, belong to species now unknown ; and as 
there is no evidence that they have at any time, subsequent to 
the formation of the diluvium, existed in these regions, we may 
conclude that the period, at which the bones of these-extinct 
species were introduced into the cave at Kirkdale, was antedilu- 
vian. Had these species-ever re-established themselves in the 
northern portions of the:world since the deluge, it is probable 
their remains would have: been found, like those of the ox, horse, 
-deer, hog, &c. preserved in the post-diluvian accumulations of 
gravel, sand, silt, mud, and peat, which are referable to causes 
still in operation, and» which, by careful examination of their 
relations to the adjacent*country, can be readily distinguished 
from those which are of diluvian origin. 
The teeth and fragments of bones above described seem to 
have lain a long time scattered’ irregularly over the bottom of 
the den, and to have been continually accumulating until the 
imtroduction of the sediment in which they are now imbedded, 
cand to-the protection of which they owe that high state of pre- 
‘servation they'possess. Those that lay long uncovered at the 
bottom of the den, have undergone a decay proportionate to the 
time of their exposure; others that have lain only a short time 
before the introduction of the diluvian mud, have been preserved. 
by it almost from even incipient decomposition. 
Thus the phenomena of this cave seem referable to a period in 
which the world was inhabited by land animals, bearing a general 
resemblance to those now existing, before the last inundation of 
the earth; but so completely has the violence of that tremendous 
convulsion destroyed and remodelled the form of its antedilavian 
surface, that it is only in caverns that have been protected from 
its ravages, that we may hope to find undisturbed evidence of 
events in the period immediately preceding it. The bones 
already described, and the stalagmite formed before the introduc- 
tion of the diluvial mud, are what I consider to be the products 
of the period in question. It was indeed probable, before the 
discovery of this cave, from the abundance in which the remains 
of similar species occur in superficial gravel beds which cannot 
