242 FOSSIL BEAR. 



appearance, as to lead Esper to speak of it as a fit temple 

 for a god of the dead. Here hundreds of cart-loads of 

 bony remains might be removed, bags might be filled 

 with fossil teeth, and animal earth was found to reach to 

 the utmost depth to which they dug. A piece of stalac- 

 tite being here broken down, was found to contain pieces 

 of bones within it. 



Cuvier estimates, that rather more than three-fourths of 

 these bones belong to species of bears now extinct ; one- 

 half, or two-thirds, of the remaining fourth belong to a 

 species of hyaena, which occurs in a fossil state in other 

 situations. A very small number of these remains belong 

 to a species of the genus Honor tiger ; and another to ani- 

 mals of the dog or wolf kinds ; and lastly, the smallest 

 portion belongs to different species of smaller carnivo- 

 rous animals, as the fox and pole-cat. We do not find in 

 these caves any remains of the elephant, rhinoceros, horse, 

 buffalo, or tapir, which occur so commonly in alluvial 

 soil ; and the palaeotheria of the flostz strata, the ruminat- 

 ing animals, and the gnawers, of the rock of Gibraltar, 

 Dalmatia, and Cette, are never met with. Nor do we 

 ever find the bears and tigers of these caves in alluvial 

 soil, or in the fissures of rocks. The only one of the spe- 

 cies found in these caves, and which is found elsewhere 

 in other formations, is the hyaena, which occurs also in 

 alluvial strata. It is quite evident that these bones could 

 not have been introduced into these caves by the action 

 of water, because the smallest processes, or inequalities, 

 on their surface are preserved. Cuvier is therefore in- 

 clined to conjecture, that the animals to which they be- 

 longed must have lived and died peaceably on the spot 

 where we now find them. This opinion is rendered 

 highly probable from the nature of the earthy matter in 

 which they are enveloped, and which, according to 



