520 ON CAVES CONTAINING BONES 



Another cave of the same neighbourhood, is named 

 Diebsloch, Thieves' Hole. Skulls have been found in it, 

 which were supposed to be human. 



We shall not speak here of those caves of the Hartz in 

 which bones have not been discovered. And even those 

 in which they have been found, are, at the present day, 

 almost exhausted, it being only by breaking the stalac- 

 tite that any can be obtained, so much of them had been 

 taken away for selling as medicines. 



The caves of Hungary come after those of the Hartz, 

 with reference to the remoteness of the time at which 

 they have been known. The first notice of them is due 

 to Paterson Hayn, (Ephem. Nat. Cur. 1672, Obs. 

 cxxxix. and cxciv.) Bruckmann, a physician of Wolfen- 

 bilttely afterwards described them at length. (Epistola Iti- 

 neraria, 77, and Breslauer Sammlung, 1725, First Trim, 

 p. 628.) They are situated in the county of Lipfow, 

 on the southern declivities of the Carpathian mountains. 

 They are known in the country by the name of Dra- 

 gons' Caves, because the people of the neighbourhood 

 attribute to those animals the bones which occur in them, 

 and with which they have been acquainted from time 

 immemorial ; but all those which have been figured by 

 authors belong to the Bear family, and to the species 

 which is named the Great Cave Sear (Grand Ours des 

 cav ernes). 



The caves of Germany the richest in bones are those 

 of Franconia, of which J. F. Esper, a clergyman of the 

 country of Bayreuth, has given a very detailed descrip- 

 tion in a work, printed in French and German, entitled, 

 Description des Zoolithes nouvellement decouvertes, 

 &c. Nuremberg Knorr. 1774, folio, with 14 coloured 



