FOSSIL BEAR* 241 



FAMILY. 



Ursus. Bear. 



1. U. Spelcsus. The size of a horse, and different from 

 any of the present existing species. 



2. U. rfrctoideus. Is a smaller species, and appears al- 

 so to be extinct. Both species are fossil, and remains of 

 them are found in great abundance in limestone caves in 

 Germany and Hungary. These caves vary much in mag- 

 nitude and form, and are more or less deeply incrusted 

 with calcarious sinter, which assumes a great variety of 

 singular and often beautiful forms. The bones occur nearly 

 in the same state in all these caves : detached, broken, 

 but never rolled, and consequently have not been brought 

 from a distance by the agency of water : they are some- 

 what lighter, and less compact than recent bones, but 

 slightly decomposed contain much gelatine, and are never 

 mineralized. They are generally enveloped in an indu- 

 rated earth, which contains animal matter ; sometimes in 

 a kind of alabaster or calcarious sinter, and by means of 

 this mineral are sometimes attached to the walls of caves. 

 These bones are t,he same in all the caves hitherto exa- 

 mined ; and it is worthy of remark, that they occur in an 

 extent of upwards of 200 leagues. 



Esper, who examined and described the caves of Gay- 

 lenreuth, on the frontiers of Bayreuth, informs us, that 

 after passing through a succession of caves, he at length 

 came to a narrow passage, which led into a small cave, 

 eight feet high and wide, which is the passage into a grot- 

 to twenty-eight feet high, and about forty-three feet long 

 and wide. Here the prodigious quantity of animal earth, 

 the vast number of teeth, jaws, and other bones, and the* 

 heavy grouping of the stalactites, produced so dismal an 



