

OBSERVATIONS ON CAVES AND FIS- 

 SURES IN GENERAL. 



CAVES and fissures are every where numerous in 

 limestone rock, though but few of them compara- 

 tively are seen rising to the surface of the land that 

 reposes upon them; nor from their bold and deep de- 

 scent towards the vallies which lie beneath. Some- 

 times, however, they rise to the surface, and open 

 their mouths, ready to devour incautious animals 

 which approach too near to them, which is sometimes 

 the case in consequence of the bushes which overhang 

 their dangerous shafts. In Derbyshire, in the dis- 

 trict of the Peak, the farmers have often to lament 

 the loss of their cattle which adventure too near 

 their descent ; so it would be in the Counties of 

 Monmouth and Glamorgan, were it not for the pre- 

 cautionary measures adopted by the inhabitants, to 

 prevent injury by those dreadful chasms which in- 

 tersect the country. Caves and fissures, whether 

 in Britain, Germany, or any other country, are 

 analogous in their formation, and alike in the de- 

 posits which are made in them. Most of those 

 which have been explored, are such as were made 

 important by sinking shafts in search for minerals, 

 or were intersected by the removal of the rock, for 

 the purpose of procuring stone for building and 

 mending the roads, and thereby discovering those 

 animal remains which had been inhumed in them, 

 while the openings of many are seen from the 

 gwrface, which have not yet been investigated. On* 



