2o4 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY 



foxes, horses, oxen, deer, and other animals which are not distinguishable from existing 

 species, had established themselves from one extremity of England to the other from 

 the caves of Yorkshire to those of Plymouth and Glamorganshire whilst the diluvial 

 gravel beds of Warwickshire, Oxford, and London, show that they were not wanting also 

 in the more central parts of the country ; and M. Cuvier has established, on evidence of 

 a similar nature, the probability of their having been spread in equal abundance over the 

 continent of Europe. But it by no means follows, from the certainty of the bones having 

 been dragged by beasts of prey into the small cavern at Kirkdale, that those of similar 

 animals must have been introduced in all other cases in the same manner ; for, as all 

 these animals were the antediluvian inhabitants of the countries in which the caves occur, 

 it is possible that some may have retired into them to die ; others have fallen into the 

 fissures by accident, and there perished ; and others have been washed in by the diluvial 

 waters. By some one or more of these latter hypotheses, we may explain those cases in 

 which the bones are few in number and not gnawed, the caverns large, and the fissures 

 extending upwards to the surface ; but where they bear marks of having been lacerated 

 by beasts of prey, and where the cavern is small, and the number of bones and teeth so 

 great and so disproportionate to each other as in the cave at Kirkdale, the only adequate 

 explanation is, that they were collected by the agency of wild beasts." In Germany the 

 zoolithic caverns are much more numerous and important than in England. There is a 

 remarkable example on the north-east border of the Hartz Mountains, called Bauman's 

 Hohle, after an unfortunate miner who, in the year 1670, ventured into it alone in search 

 of ore ; and, after having wandered three days and nights in its solitude and darkness, at 

 length found his way out, but in such a state of exhaustion that he died almost immediately. 

 It is a suite of natural chambers in a bed of transition limestone, the floor of which is 

 composed of a thick crust of stalagmite, beneath which lies an accumulation of several 

 feet of mud mixed with bones and pebbles. But the caves of Franconia are by far the 

 richest and most beautiful of this class. They lie on the north-east extremity of the 

 chain of the Jura between Nuremburg and Baireuth, in the valley of the Wiesent, a 

 tributary stream of the valley of the Maine. The most important is the Cave of Gailen- 

 reuth, situated in a perpendicular rock, its moifth being upwards of three hundred feet 



above the bed of the river, consisting of 

 an aperture seven feet high and twelve 

 broad. An open fissure in the rock ex- 

 tends from the cave to the table-land 

 above, as shown in the illustration. The 

 floor consists of stalagmite lying over a 

 bed of slime which contains the animal 

 remains. The cave has two chief cham- 

 bers, the roof of which is abundantly 

 hung with stalactites. From the first to 

 the second chamber the visitor descends 

 by a ladder, as represented in the section, 

 which exhibits the breccia of bones, 

 pebbles, and loam, and the artificial ex- 



Gailenreuth. 



tension of the cavern by the removal of it. 



Almost all the bones belong to the bear of the caverns, and are admirably preserved. 

 Those of -a species of cat, resembling the American jaguar, have also been discovered, and 

 those of the hyaena ; but the latter are of rare occurrence. In conformity with the habits 

 of the bear, the remains of prey, dragged in, are almost entirely wanting. There are two 

 neighbouring caverns of the same class ; those of Zahriloch (teeth -hole) and Kuhloch. 



