1822.] Bones discavered in a Cave at Kirkdale,in. Yorkshire. 191 
lowing words to the same purpose, “ Limo nigricante vel fusco 
infectum est solum.”—(Leibnitz, Protogaea, p. 65.) 
Esper thus describes the state of the floor near the entrance 
of one of the largest caverns at Gailenreuth. “ Dans: toute la 
contrée le terrain est marneux, mélé avec du limon, et tire sur le 
jaune, mais ici on trouve une terre moins limoneuse dans une 
profondeur considérable. Je ne prétends pas encore la prendre 
absolument pour une terre animale telle qu’est sans contredit la 
terre qui se trouve plus bas, mais probablement elle doit y €tre 
rapportée, p. 9. This again is consistent with the circumstances 
of the cave at Kirkdale, the mud, thus dubiously spoken of, 
being probably of diluvial origin, and reposing on, and being 
mixed with, the animal earth that had been formed before its 
introduction. The absence of black animal earth at Kirkdale, 
results from the fact of the flesh, and great part even of the 
bones of the animals introduced to it, having been eaten by the 
hyenas. 
The identity of time and circumstances which I am endeavour- 
ing to establish between the German and English caverns, does 
not, however, depend so much on comparisons between. the 
stalactitic matter and earthy sediments which they contain, as 
on the agreement in species of the animals entombed in them, 
viz. in the agreement of the animals of the English caves with 
those of the diluvian gravel of the greater part of Europe; and, 
in the case of the German caves, on the identity of the extinct 
bear with that of the diluvian gravel of Upper Austria, and the 
extinct hyena with that of the gravel at Canstadt, in the valley 
of the Necker; and at Eichstadt, in Bavaria; to these may be 
added the extinct rhinoceros, elephant, and hippopotamus, which 
are common to gravel beds as well as caves. And hence it fol- 
lows, that the period at which all these caverns were inhabited 
by the animals in question, was antecedent to the formation of 
that deposit of gravel, which it seems to me impossible to ascribe 
to any other origin than a transient deluge, affecting universally, 
simultaneously, and at no very distant period, the entire surface 
of our planet. 
The bones found in these caverns are considered by M. Cuvier 
to be of older date than those of the osseous breccia, which, at 
Gibraltar and various places along the cvast of the Mediterra- 
nean and Adriatic, occur in vertical fissures of limestone. This 
breccia contains fragments of bones and teeth of various rumi- 
nating and gnawing animals; that is, of ox, deer, antelope, 
sheep, rabbits, rats, mice; also of the horse and ass, of snakes 
and birds, mixed with land shells, and angular fragments of the 
adjacent rock ; all united into a solid breccia by ochreous stalac- 
tite. The greater number of these animals agree with species 
that now exist, and are supposed by M. Cuvier to have: fallen 
into the fissures in the period succeeding the last retreat of the 
waters. I do not see why some of them may not also: have 
