286 M, ChevreuCs Chemical Examination o/'two [April, 



has remained, amid the diUivial changes that have affected so 

 many others. The inclination of the floor for about 30 feet 

 nearest the mouth is very considerable, and but little earth is 

 lodged upon it; but further in, the interior of the cavern is 

 entirely covered with a mass of dark brown or blackish earth, 

 through which are disseminated, in great abundance, the bones 

 and teeth of bears and other animals, and a few small angular 

 fragments of limestone, which have probably fallen from the 

 roof, but I could find no rolled pebbles. The upper portion of 

 this earth seems to be mixed up with a quantity of calcareous 

 loam, which, before it, had been disturbed by digging, probably 

 formed a bed of diluvial sediment over the animal remains ; but, 

 as we sink deeper, the earth gets blacker and more free from 

 loam, and seems wholly composed of decayed animal matter. 

 There is no appearance of either stalactite or stalagmite having 

 ever existed within this cavern. 



" In some of the particulars here enumerated, there is an appa- 

 rent inconsistency with the phenomena of other caverns, but the 

 differences are such as arise from the particular position and 

 circumstances of the cave at Kiihloch : the absence of pebbles, 

 and the presence of such an enormous mass of animal dust, are 

 the anomalies I allude to ; and both these circumstances indicate 

 a less powerful action of diluvial waters within this cave than in 

 any other, excepting Kirkdale. To these waters, however, we 

 must still refer the introduction of the brown loam, and the 

 formation or laying open of the present mouth of the cavern : 

 from its low position so near the bottom of the valley, this mouth 

 could not have been exposed in its present state, and indeed 

 must have been entirely covered under solid rock till all the 

 materials that lay above it had been swept away, and the valley 

 cut down nearly to its present base ; and as the cave ends 

 inwardly in a cii/ de sac, and there is no vertical fissure, or any 

 other mode of access to it, but by the present mouth, if we can 

 find therein any circumstances that would prevent the admission 

 of pebbles from without, or the removal of the animal remains 

 from within, the cause of tiie anomaly we are considering will 

 be explained. That the throat of the cave by which we 

 ascend from the mouth to the interior is highly inclined 

 upwards, so that neither would any pebbles that were drifting 

 on with the waters that excavated the valley ascend this 

 inclined plane to enter the cave, nor would the external currents, 

 however rapidly rushingby the outside of the mouth, have power 

 to agitate (except by slight eddies in the lower part of the throat) 

 the still waters that would fill the body of the cavern, and which 

 being there quiescent, would, as at Kirkdale, deposita sediment 

 from the mud suspended in them upon the undisturbed remains 

 of whatever kind that lay on the floor. From its low position, 

 it is also probable that the vault formed the deepest recess of an 



