24 PROFESSOR T. MCKEXXY HUGHES, M.A. 



the mountains, it happened that, being short of time, I was sometimes so 

 pressed that, after I had left the railway at Penrith, in making my way over 

 a place 1,000 feet high to my shooting-box on the middle of the moor, I was 

 overtaken by darkness before I could reach home. I had observed how 

 amenable the district was to swallow-holes. Very often, where there was 

 only a thin covering of sandy rock, there was, at short distances from one 

 another, a succession of caverns hollowed out of the limestone stratum, and 

 these becoming enlarged had given way at the top and fallen in so as to 

 leave a crater-like opening. One night, when it was pitch dark, I came 

 suddenly upon one of these craters, and tumbling head over heels picked 

 myself up at the bottom. I then found that I was very near a little hole 

 through which water was trickling, and when I got to the shooting-box 

 I found, on putting my hands in my pockets, that they were full of moss ; 

 so that I felt sure I had had a complete capsize. It struck me that, 

 supposing I had broken my legs and had been left there to starve to death, 

 my bones would probably have been carried by the water through one of the 

 openings in the rock into a limestone cavern beneath. Thus it seemed to 

 me that at times small bones may have been introduced into caverns 

 through these openings above, and at others, bones of the larger animals 

 may have got in through the chasms we find in the rocks. There is the Ply- 

 mouth limestone again which often, through quarrying operations, has been 

 the means of presenting to us the bones of lions and tigers and a number of 

 other animals which at the present day are strangers to anything like our 

 latitudes ; but I will not detain you by going into this branch of the subject. 

 I may say, however, that what has been put before us in reference to the 

 Ingleborough and other caves teaches us a very important lesson. I was 

 rather astonished by what the author of the paper told us as to the stalag- 

 mitic floors being forced up by the action of a very heavy flood of rain water, 

 and I cannot help seeing therein one of those difficulties that are exceedingly 

 apt to puzzle tyros in geological inquiry. I have always felt that the examin- 

 ation of these caves ought to be conducted with the very greatest care and 

 caution, and that the question of their formation and contents was a matter 

 requiring to be dealt with by the most experienced geologists ; because, when 

 we come to the breaking up of stalagmite floors and the bones embedded in 

 them, it stands to reason that conclusions of the most dangerous kind may 

 easily be arrived at far too hastily. Whether one refers to caves that are to 

 be found on the sea-shore or to caverns met with in the inland limestone 

 districts, there are on all sides a great many subjects to be considered in 

 forming our conclusions. I cannot help referring to one peculiarity in 

 regard to caves, which, perhaps, Professor Hughes has not seen, but which 

 I have noticed in a district to the east of Ingleborough, namely, at 

 Swaledale, in the locality of Grinton Moor, where one finds on going 

 through the caves the joints in some of the beds are enlarged in a curious 

 fashion. The caves there, where the miners find the most valuable lead 

 ores, are longitudinal, and present appearances so numerous, and so 



