ON THE 



CONTENTS OF A BONE CAVE. 



IN the year 1868, a quantity of cave earth, limestone fragments, and bone 

 breccia was brought to the port of Philadelphia by a vessel and deposited on the 

 lot of Henry Waters & 13rO., manufacturers of phosphatic manures, on the Schuyl- 

 kill. The material was imported for the purpose of ascertaining its value as a 

 fertilizer, especially by the determination of its richness in calcium phosphate. It 

 was obtained from a cave in the small Antillean island of Anguilla, which belongs 

 to Denmark. Through the attention of Mr. Waters, 1 learned of the existence of 

 fossil bones in the cargo, and proceeded to examine them. Remains of long bones 

 lying irregularly in a rather hard but cavernous red cave deposit of limestone were 

 found mingled with fragments of lighter limestone from the walls of the cave in 

 irregular masses, the whole being penetrated and mixed with a yellow stalagmitic 

 deposit of arragonite. 



From a block of the breccia I dressed three molar teeth, two partially complete, 

 and two much broken incisors, fragments of maxillary and pelvic bones, shafts of 

 various long bones, and the distal extremity of a femur with a patella. These 

 were the first evidences of the existence of the large rodent Amblyrliiza inundata, 

 which was described in the proceedings of the American Philosophical Society for 

 1868. Other bones were found in other breccia masses, which I could not clearly 

 refer to any other animal. With them occurred a shell of Turbo pica, Linn. 



Having learned that Dr. E. van Hijgersma, colonial physician of the Danish 

 Island of Saint Martins, was interested in all departments of the natural sciences, 

 I wrote asking him to make an examination of the deposit in question, and to 

 secure, if possible, all fossils discovered in excavating it. He accordingly very 

 kindly went to Anguilla, and was rewarded by the possession of numerous addi- 

 tional teeth and bones of AmblyrJiiza. Subsequent visits added two species of this 

 genus, together with the bones of a species of ruminant near the genus Capra; 

 bones of a probable rodent of smaller size, of two species of birds, of a lizard, and 

 a shell chisel of human manufacture. These remains are described in the following 

 pages. 



Unfortunately no notes were taken as to the relations of the parts of the cave 

 deposit, or whether any stratification is observable. We are, therefore, left to a 

 consideration of the appearance of the fossils themselves in estimating their proba- 



1 April, 1883. ( 1 ) 



