480 ‘Rev. Mr. Buckland’s Account of Fossil Teeth and [Srpv. 
they all live and die together, as they formerly did in Britain ; 
while the hippopotamus is now confined exclusively to Africa, 
and the elephant, rhinoceros, and hyena, are also diffused 
widely over the continent of Asia. 
- Such are the principal facts I observed in the interior of the 
cave at Kirkdale, and such the leading conclusions that seem to 
arise from them; and I cannot sufficiently lament that I was not. 
present at its first opening, to witness the exact state in which it 
appeared, before any part of the surface of the mud had been 
disturbed. 
From the description given of the state of the bones, and of 
the mud and staiactite that accompany them, we may extract 
the following detailed history of the operations that have succes- 
sively been going on within the cave. 
1. There appears to have been a period (and if we may form 
an estimate from the small quantity of stalagmite now found on 
the actual floor of the cave, a very short one), during which this 
aperture in the rock existed, but was not tenanted by the hyenas. 
The removal of the mud which now entirely covers the floor, 
would be necessary to ascertain the exact quantity ofstalagmite 
referable to this period ; but it cannot be very great, and can 
only be expected to exist where there is much stalactite also 
upon the roof and sides. 
The second period was that during which the cave was inha- 
bited by the hyzenas, and the stalactite and stalagmite were still 
forming. The constant passage of the hyenas in so low acave, 
would much interrupt this formation ; as they would strike off 
the former from the roof and sides by their constant ingress and 
egress ; and accordingly in some specimens of the breccia, we 
find mixed with the bones, fragments of stalactite, that seem to 
have been thus knocked off from the roof and sides of the cave, 
while it was inhabited by hyznas before the introduction of the 
mud ; I have one example of a hollow stalactitic tube that lay in 
ean horizontal position in the midst of, and parallel to, some long 
splinters of bone and the unbroken ulna of a rat; all these are 
united by stalagmite ; and it is impossible that this stalactitic 
pipe could have been formed in any other than a vertical position, 
hanging from the roof or sides. In other specimens of the 
breccia, I have split fragments of the teeth of deer and hyzna ; 
and in almost every portion I have seen, either of this breccia or 
of the antediluvian stalagmite, there are teeth of the water-rat. 
Mr. Gibson possesses a mass exceeding a foot in diameter, com- 
posed of fragments of many large bones, mixed with some teeth 
of rhinoceros and several of the larger animals, and also of rats, 
all adhering firmly together in a matrix of stalagmite. It did not 
occur to me, while on the spot, to examine whether the bottom 
of the cave is any where polished (like the tiger’s den before 
alluded to), in those parts which must have been the constant 
gangway of the hyenas; but the universal cover of mud by 
