HY.ENA SPEL^A 143 



Rhinoceros, and other diluvial animals, occur in a state 

 of freshness and perfection, even exceeding that of those 

 in the cave at Kirkdale, and from a similar cause, viz., 

 their having been guarded from the access of atmospheric 

 air, or the percolation of water, by the argillaceous ma- 

 trix in which they have been imbedded, whilst other bones, 

 that have lain the same length of time in diluvial sand 

 or gravel, and been subject to the constant percolation of 

 water, have lost their compactness and strength, and great 

 part of their gelatine, and are often ready to fall to pieces 

 on the slightest touch, and this where the beds of clay and 

 gravel in question alternate in the same quarry, as at Law- 

 ford. 



" The bottom of the cave, on first removing the mud, 

 was found to be strewed all over, like a dog-kennel, from 

 one end to the other, with hundreds of teeth and bones, 

 or, rather, broken and splintered fragments of bones, of 

 all the animals above enumerated ; they were found in 

 greatest quantity near its mouth, simply because its area 

 in this part was most capacious; those of the larger ani- 

 mals, Elephant, Rhinoceros, &c., were found co-exten- 

 sively with all the rest, even in the inmost and smallest 

 recesses. Scarcely a single bone - has escaped fracture, 

 with the exception of the astragalus, and other hard and 

 solid bones of the tarsus and carpus joints, and those of 

 the feet. On some of the bones, marks may be traced 

 which, on applying one to the other, appear exactly to 

 fit the form of the canine teeth of the Hyeena that occur 

 in the cave. The Hyaena's bones have been broken, and 

 apparently gnawed equally with those of the other ani- 

 mals. Heaps of small splinters, and highly comminuted, 

 yet angular fragments of bone, mixed with teeth of all 

 the varieties of animals above enumerated, lay in the bot- 



