1822.] Bones discovered in a Cave at Kirkdale, in Yorkshire. 181 
which it is buried, renders it necessary that this should be 
removed, in order to the observation I suggest. During the 
formation of this stalactitic matter, no mud appears to have been 
introduced ; and had there been any in the cave at the time 
while the osseous breccia was forming, it would either have 
excluded all access of the stalagmite to the bones, or have been 
mixed and entangled with it in very large proportions, forming a 
‘spongy mass, such as it does at the root of the stalagmites that 
lie on its surface. “ 
The third period is that at which the mud was introduced and 
the animals extirpated, viz. the period of the deluge. I have 
already stated that the animal remains are found principally in the 
lower regions of this sediment of mud, which appears to have 
been introduced in a fluid state, so as to envelope the bony frag- 
ments then lying on the bottom of the cave: and the power of 
water to introduce such sediments is shown by the state of 
Wokey Hole, and similar caverns in the Mendip Hills, and 
Derbyshire, which are subject to be filled with water occasion- 
ally by heavy land floods. The effect of these floods being to 
leave on the floor a sediment of mud precisely similar to that 
which covers the bones and osseous breccia in the cave of Kirk- 
dale. I have also mentioned that there is no alternation of this 
mud with beds of bone or of stalagmite, such as would have 
occurred had it been produced by land floods often repeated ; 
once, and once only it appears to have been introduced ; and 
we may probably consider its vehicle to have been the turbid 
waters of the same inundation that produced the diluvial gravel: 
these would enter and fill the cave, and there becoming quies- 
cent, would deposit the mud suspended in them (as we see daily 
silt and warp deposited in quiet spots by waters of muddy rivers) 
along the whole bottom of the den, where it has remained undis- 
turbed ever since. We cannot refer this mud to a land flood, or 
a succession of land floods, partly for the reasons before stated, 
and partly from the general dryness of the cave; had it been 
liable to be filled with muddy water, it would have been so at 
the time I visited it in December, 1821, at the end of one of the 
most rainy seasons ever remembered ; but even then there were 
not the slightest symptoms of any such occurrence, and a few 
scanty droppings from the roof were the only traces of water 
within the area of the cavern. 
The fourth period is that during which the stalagmite was 
deposited which invests the upper surface of the mud. The 
quantity of this stalagmite appears to be much greater than that 
formed in the two periods during, and before which, the cave was 
tenanted by hyenas. In the whole of this fourth period, no 
creature appears to have entered the cave, with the exception 
ossibly of mice, weasels, rabbits, and foxes, until it was opened 
ast summer, and no other process of any kind appears to have 
