OF CREATION. 



313 



already described, many others, and amongst them 

 the large bear and the musk-ox of the Arctic land, 

 are known to occur ; and the migratory habits of the 

 latter animal have been distinctly noticed by good 

 naturalists. 



The large animals formerly spread over such ex- 

 tensive tracts in northern Europe, found in the frozen 

 gravel and sand on the shores of the Polar seas and 

 in the drift-gravel, and often associated with large 

 boulders in warmer latitudes, have also been in many 

 cases preserved in caverns, in limestone rocks, or in 

 the alluvial deposits of lakes and rivers. We obtain 

 also from these sources a knowledge of many species, 

 not hitherto met with in so perfect a state as the 

 elephant and rhinoceros just described, but still af- 

 fording sufficient material to enable us to determine 

 their general structure, external form, and habits. 

 Among the most interesting of these, from their size 

 and the circumstances under which they occur, may 

 be ranked the great cavern bear, the cavern hysena, 

 a gigantic feline animal of the caverns, a gigantic 

 animal of the Bos tribe, and a very large-horned 

 cervine animal, often designated as the Irish elk. 

 Remains of all these, and also of the hippopotamus 

 and other pachyderms, have been met with in more 

 or less abundance in the caverns, and are mixed with 

 the drift and other gravel of our own country. 



The history of these caverns is almost as curious 

 and interesting, and is as important in a geological 

 sense, as that of the animal remains found in them. 

 They are often at a considerable elevation, the open- 

 ing being on the side of the valley. On being first 

 broken into they are generally found coated entirely 



