30 ANALOGY BETWEEN THE "HEAD" 



6. THE ORIGIN OF THE OSSIFEROUS FISSURES. 



After describing the several ways by which the 

 animal remains might have been introduced into the 

 fissures, Buckland concluded that during the 

 Quaternary period there were open rents in the 

 limestone rocks, into which the animals fell, and that 

 their bodies remained undisturbed on the spot on 

 which they died until drifted forward and dispersed 

 by inrushes of water. Admitting the possibility that 

 the fissures might prove pitfalls, all the bones of 

 the skeleton ought, as the animals are supposed to 

 have fallen alive into the fissures, to be there, how- 

 soever dispersed the separate bones might be : but 

 that is never the case. The bones are dispersed without 

 order or proportion. Surely also some of the skeletons 

 would have been preserved entire. Again, if left 

 for a time exposed in the fissures, the bones would be 

 variously weathered, which they are not. Nor would 

 the mere fall have been sufficient to have caused 

 the extensive breakage of the bones have under- 

 gone : these, I consider, are fatal objections to this 

 explanation, and none other has since been offered. 



Besides this the debris forming the osseous breccia 

 is, like that forming the Head, perfectly angular, the 

 animal remains are of the same species, and the bones 

 are broken, unworn, and dispersed in the same way. 

 Both have, I apprehend, had the same origin, only 

 that in the one case the rubble has been shot over mural 

 precipices, and in the other into open fissures, and 



