OF CARNIVOROUS ANIMALS. 543 



cured a great part of this skeleton. There are still 

 found here and there in the cave some small heaps of 

 clayey mud, with fragments of white secondary lime- 

 stone, as well as large isolated limestone blocks, which 

 the guides are daily destroying, to make the floor even 

 for the convenience of visitors. 



I had only advanced an hour and a quarter's progress 

 into the cave, always finding bones, when the oil of my 

 lamps beginning to fail, I was obliged to return without 

 reaching the block in which M. Volpi had found the 

 first bones. This block is without doubt owing to the 

 same causes as the heap of which I have spoken above. 



The manner in which these heaps exist, being compo- 

 sed of blocks of compact white secondary limestone, si- 

 milar to that which forms the walls of the cave, with 

 sharp edges, and piled upon each other, made me ima- 

 gine that they might have fallen from the roof. As I 

 returned, I examined the ceiling of the vaults with atten- 

 tion. As it was all covered over with stalactites, I 

 could not discover any fissure. 



From this short excursion in the Adelsberg cave, I 

 am induced to believe, that the bones exist along the 

 whole extent of the cave, and that they occur in two dif- 

 ferent ways ; \st, scattered in the clayey mud which forms 

 the floor of the chambers ; and, Qdly, buried in heaps 

 formed of blocks of white secondary compact limestone, 

 and yellow clayey mud. 



The hypothesis which M. Cuvier admits as the most 

 probable for explaining the presence of these bones in 

 the caves, is that which would make these caves to have 

 served as a retreat to carnivorous animals. 



The presence of bones in the clayey mud of the floor 



