334 



the last, and also covered with animal earth and numerous 

 bones. Several intricate passages and five other caves ter- 

 minated in a grotto above forty feet long and wide. Here 

 the prodigious quantity of animal earth, the vast number of 

 teeth, jaws, and other bones, and the heavy grouping of the 

 stalactites, produced so dismal an appearance, as to lead 

 Esper to speak of it as " a model for a temple for a god of 

 the dead."* 



The bones which have been discovered in similar caverns, 

 over an extent of more than two hundred leagues, are al- 

 most all found in the same state, and under the same circum- 

 stances, and appear to belong to similar animals. Rosen- 

 muller and Camper were satisfied that these bones were 

 chiefly of the bear : and Blumenbach was able to distinguish 

 two species ; one, with a raised forehead, only known in 

 these situations, which he named ursus spelceus ; and 

 another, which he considered, with Camper, as the white or 

 polar bear, ursus arctoideus. Cuvier also examined these 

 remains, and was of opinion that they were those of two 

 species hitherto unknown among the living species. 



The following is an abridged account, from The Annals 

 of Philosophy, March 1822, of Professor Buckland's interest- 

 ing paper, read before the Royal Society, on an English 

 cavern, resembling, in its contents, those which have been 

 just mentioned: 



This paper gives a detailed account of a den of hyaenas 

 discovered in the summer of 1821, at Kirkdale, near Kirby 

 Moorside, in Yorkshire, about twenty-five miles north-east 

 of York. 



* Description des Zeolites nouvellement decouvertes d'Animaux, 

 Quadrupedes, inconnue, et des Cavernes qui les renferment, par J. F. 

 Esper, 1774. 



