464 Proceedings of Philosophical Societies. [June, 



ent degrees of density ; and had, therefore, been induced to 

 make some researches on the subject. A portion of atmospheric 

 air was heated in a glass tube from 32° to 212°, and the space 

 which it then occupied accurately marked ; the experiment 

 being made with air, confined by the pressure of 30 and 65 

 inches of mercury, it was found to occupy the same space as 

 the air under common pressure ; the same result was obtained 

 when the air was six times condensed, and also when it was 

 once, twice, thrice, and fifteen times rarefied. 



At this meeting, the reading of Prof. Buckland's paper, which 

 had been begun on the 17 th of April, as above stated, was 

 resumed and concluded. 



Mr. Buckland had mentioned, at the end of his former paper 

 that another cave, similar to the one he had examined at Kirkdale, 

 had been discovered at Kirby Moorside, and that it had been 

 closed up by the proprietor C. Duncombe, Esq. until some qua- 

 lified person should be present to inspect it in its undisturbed 

 state. The author went into Yorkshire to examine it, last July, 

 in company with Sir H. Davy and Mr. Warburton ; and though 

 it contained not a single bone, yet its circumstances with respect 

 to diluvial sediment and stalagmite were precisely analogous to 

 those of the cave at Kirkdale, and fully confirmed his account 

 of, and reasoning upon them. The second part of this paper 

 related to a fissure of postdiluvian origin in Duncombe Park, 

 the existence of which had not been known to Mr. Duncombe 

 until the author's late visit. It lies open, like a pit-fall (par- 

 tially concealed by bushes), across the top of a limestone hill on 

 the west side of the valley of the Rye ; its direction is oblique, 

 and it has several ledges, at different depths, and various irregu- 

 lar lateral openings. It contains neither mud nor pebbles, but 

 upon the ledges lay the dislocated skeletons of various animals 

 that had recently fallen in and perished ; comprising those of 

 dogs, sheep, deer, goats, and hogs, &c. They were not imbed- 

 ded in loam or covered with stalactite ; the bones did not adhere 

 to the tongue ; retained much of their animal matter ; and were 

 evidently much more recent than those found in the cave at 

 Kirkdale. 



From the circumstances of this fissure and its contents, Prof. 

 Buckland proceeded to illustrate the origin of the assemblages 

 of bones in the Plymouth and other fissures and caves connected 

 with them. The number of such fissures which are met with, 

 filled with diluvian detritus, he observed, evinces that open fis- 

 sures must have been more numerous in the antediluvian state 

 of the earth than at present ; and as it is the habit of graminivo- 

 rous animals to be constantly traversing the ground, in all direc- 

 tions, in the act of cropping their food, they would often be 

 liable to fall into them, and actually do so in Derbyshire, and the 

 limestone districts of South Wales : while carnivorous animals 



