SPEL^EA. 141 



about two hundred and fifty feet into the interior of the 

 hill, expanding and contracting itself irregularly from two 

 to seven feet in breadth, and two to fourteen feet in height. 

 " Both the roof and floor, for many yards from the en- 

 trance, are composed of regular horizontal strata of lime- 

 stone, uninterrupted by the slightest appearance of fissure, 

 fracture, or stony rubbish of any kind ; but, farther in, the 

 roof and sides become irregularly arched, presenting a very 

 rugged and grotesque appearance, and being studded with 

 pendent and roundish masses of chert and stalactite ; the 

 bottom of the cavern is visible only near the entrance, and 

 its irregularities, though apparently not great, have been 

 filled up throughout, to a nearly level surface, by the intro- 

 duction of a bed of mud or loamy sediment. 



" There is no alternation of mud with any repeated beds 

 of stalactite, but simply a partial deposit of the latter on 

 the floor beneath it ; and it was chiefly in the lower part 

 of the earthy sediment, and in the stalagmitic matter 

 beneath it, that the animal remains were found ; there 

 was nowhere any black earth or admixture of animal mat- 

 ter, except an infinity of extremely minute particles of 

 undecomposed bone. In the whole extent of the cave, 

 only a very few large bones have been discovered that 

 are tolerably perfect ; most of them are broken into small 

 angular fragments and chips, the greater part of which 

 lay separately in the mud, whilst others were wholly or 

 partially invested with stalagmite ; and others, again, mixed 

 with masses of still smaller fragments, and cemented by 

 stalagmite, so as to form an osseous breccia. In some few 

 places, where the mud was shallow and the heaps of teeth 

 and bones considerable, parts of the latter were elevated 

 some inches above the surface of the mud and its stalag- 

 mitic crust, and the upper ends of the bones thus pro- 



