ON CAVES. 19 



versing about it with M. Bomfils, who was there at the time 

 it was discovered. The cave is one of several which occur 

 east of Mentone in the Limestone Rocks, known as Baousse 

 Rousse, the Red Rocks. The cave was partly filled with 

 cave earth and angular fragments of limestone fallen from, 

 the roof and sides. In this the skeleton was found, as far as 

 I could gather, interred. I learned that the implements which 

 I noticed in the photograph had not been found with it, but 

 had been put in to make a better picture. It appeared 

 that, though found with the bones of the extinct mammalia, 

 it was not Palaeolithic, but buried among them, and so it may 

 have been of any subsequent date. The evidence, however, 

 which appeared to assign its more probable age to it namely 

 Neolithic was unfortunately of no value, as the implements 

 were not found with the skeleton, but only placed by it to 

 make a more interesting photograph. 



Some caves, like that of Adelsberg, about twenty-six miles 

 east of Trieste, open out into grand halls draped with stalag- 

 mite and sparkling with crystalline incrustations. One of 

 the chambers measures 665 x 640 x 100 feet, and in another, 

 on every Whit-Monday, a great ball is given. The work of 

 excavation is still going on here, for a river empties itself into 

 the cavernous rock below the entrance to these grottoes, and 

 is heard roaring in the deep recesses far within the cave. 



In other cases, instead of such vast halls, we find a more 

 immense extent of galleries, as in the Mammoth Cave 01 

 Kentucky. Both suggest a great lapse of time. In this it 

 is estimated that there are about 150 miles of underground 

 passages. All the drainage of that area drops into great 

 swallow-holes which join the general network of subterranean 

 channels. In them a uniform earth temperature of 54 deg. 

 Fahr. is maintained. No frost and thaw aid the denudation 

 there. As long as the area drained has been unchanged and 

 the amount of acid in the water has not varied, the rate of 

 waste has probably been the same ; and though we cannot 

 offer any numerical estimate of the time it has taken to 

 remove so much rock in this way, we cannot help feeling that 

 it must have been very long. 



If we turn to the fauna of this cave, we get a peep at 

 Nature carrying on some of her most mysterious work. Here 

 we find animals modified to accord with their surroundings 

 organs unused being atrophied and lost. Where there was no 

 light, they could not see. So many of the insects, crusta- 

 ceans and fish are blind. The wild spring and headlong 

 flight of the grasshopper would be dangerous in those dark 

 recesses. The poor insect would dash against the rock or 



