188 —§ Rev. Mr. Buckland’s Account of Fossil Teeth and [Sere. 
from the fact last mentioned.* They are often buried ina brown 
argillaceous or marly earth, as in the cases of Gailenreuth, 
Zahnloch, and in the Hartz, which earth, from an analysis by 
M. Frischman, seems to contain a large proportion of animal 
matter derived from the decay of the fleshy parts of the bears. 
In the caves of Gailenreuth and Mockas, a large proportion 
of the bones is invested with stalactite. Even entire beds, and 
heaps of them many feet thick, are sometimes cemented toge- 
ther by it, so as to form a compact breccia. Occasionally they 
adhere by stalactite to the sides of the cavern, but are never 
found in the substance of the rock itself. At Sharzfelden, and 
in the Carpathians, they have been found enveloped with agaric 
mineral (lac lune); they have undergone no alteration of form, 
but the larger bones are generally separated from their epiphyses. 
Their usual colour is yellowish-white, but brown where they have 
lain in dark-coloured earth, as at Lichtenstein. At Mockas 
their decree of decay is by far the greatest. Even the enamel 
of the teeth is far gone, and the bones are perfectly white, hav- 
ing lost all their animal gluten, and acquired the softness and 
spongy appearance, as well as colour, of calcined bones; still 
their form is perfect, and substance inflexible, and when struck, 
they ring like metallic bodies falling to the ground. These 
retain simply their phosphate of lime. In other caverns they 
are usually less decayed, but they sometimes exfoliate and crack 
on exposure to air, and the teeth particularly are apt to split and 
fall to pieces, as are also those at Kirkdale.+ 
M. Rosenmuller is decidedly of opinion with M. Cuvier, that 
the bears’ bones are the remains of animals which lived and died 
through successive generations in the caves in which we find 
them ; nay even that they were also born in the same caves. In 
proof of which he has found some bones of a bear, that must 
have died immediately after buth, and other bones of individuals 
that must have died young. This is analogous to the case of 
numerous teeth of young hyenas with fangs not formed; and 
the jaws of two that had not shed their first teeth, which I 
found at Kirkdale. 
Most of the arguments which I have used to show that the 
bones in Yorkshire cannot have been accumulated by the action 
of one, or of a succession of floods, apply with equal force to the 
cave at Gailenreuth, and it is unnecessary to repeat them. 
* At Kirkdale, not one skull, and few, if any, of the larger bones are found entire ; 
for these had all been broken up by the hyenas to extract the brains and marrow ; and 
in their strong and worn out teeth we sec the instruments by which they were thus de- 
stroyed. The bears, on the other hand, not being exclusively carnivorous, nor haying 
teeth fitted for the cracking of large bones, have left untouched the osseous remains of 
their own species. 
+ It is a curious fact, that of the numerous caves in the calcareous hills near Muggen- 
dorf, that flank the valley of the Weisent-stream, those on the north chain contain not a 
fragment of the bones of the Ursus spelzus, while those on the south side are full of 
them. ‘This may probably be explained by supposing the mouths of the former to have 
been closed in the antediluvian period, and afterwards laid open by denudation. 
