306 THE STORY OF THE EAETH AND MATT. 



the cavern was liable to be inundated with muddy 

 water, i-arryrag stones and other heavy objects, and 

 breaking up in places the old stalagmite floor. One of 

 the most puzzling features, especially to those who 

 take an exclusively uniformitarian view, is, that the 

 entrance of water-borne mud and stones implies a 

 level of the bottom of the water in the neighbouring 

 valleys of about 100 feet above its present height. 

 The cave earth is covered by a second crust of stalag- 

 mite, less dense and thick than that below, and con- 

 taining only a few bones, which are of the same 

 general character with those below, but include a frag- 

 ment of a human jaw with teeth. Evidently, when this 

 stalagmite was formed, the influx of water-borne 

 materials had ceased, or nearly so ; but whether the 

 animals previously occupying the country still con- 

 tinued in it, or only accidental bones, etc., were 

 introduced into the cave or lifted from the bed below, 

 does not appear. 



The next bed marks a new change. It is a layer 

 of black mould from three to ten inches thick. Its 

 microscopic structure does not seem to have been 

 examined ; but it is probably a forest soil, introduced 

 by growth, by water, by wind, and by ingress of 

 animals, at a time when the cave was nearly in its 

 present state, and the surrounding country densely 

 wooded. This bed contains bones of animals, all of 

 them modern, and works of art ranging from the old 

 British times before the Roman invasion up to the 

 porter-bottles and dropped halfpence of modern visi- 



