v VALUE OF EARLY ASSOCIATIONS 69 



beneath the surface, it seems an old familiar friend of my 

 childhood. 



Another specimen of which I have a very vivid recollec- 

 tion was labelled in the handwriting of the kind donor, 

 " Bone from Kirkdale Cave, Yorkshire." It was given to me 

 by an old gentleman who lived in the neighbourhood, and 

 whose large collection of geological specimens was a great 

 delight to me to look over. It was a perfectly valueless 

 fragment from a scientific point of view, not having characters 

 enough to identify the animal to which it belonged, being 

 little more in fact than a chip from the surface of a long 

 bone, of which thousands were found in the cave. But it 

 woke up a train of interest in me, leading to the whole 

 subject of caves and their bygone inhabitants, and the reading 

 of Buckland's jReligruice Diluviance ; while ever since Kirkdale 

 Cave has stood out among all other caves, with a sort of 

 romantic halo conferred upon it in my mind by the present of 

 that fragment of bone with all its early associations. These 

 are only two instances out of any number I could tell of the 

 ways in which a boy's museum may become a source of 

 knowledge and of interest that may last through life. 



