368 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
4th. An almost black layer, about four inches thick, composed 
mainly of small fragments of charred wood, and distinguished as 
the black band, occupied an area of about 100 square feet, im- 
mediately under the granular stalagmite, and, at the nearest point, 
not more than thirty-two feet from one of the entrances to the 
cavern. Nothing of the kind has occurred elsewhere. 
5th. Immediately under the granular stalagmite and the black 
band lay a light red clay, containing usually about 50 per cent. of 
small angular fragments of limestone, and somewhat numerous 
blocks of the same rock as large as those lying on the black mould. 
In this deposit, known as the cave-earth, many of the stones and 
bones were, at all depths, invested with thin stalagmitic films. The 
cave-earth was of unknown depth near the entrances, where its base 
had never been reached; but in the remoter parts of the cavern it 
did not usually exceed a foot, and in a few localities it “thinned 
out” entirely. 
6th. Beneath the cave-earth there was usually found a floor of 
stalagmite having a crystalline texture, and termed on that account 
the crystalline stalagmite. It was commonly thicker than the 
granular floor, and in one instance but little short of 12 feet. 
7th. Below the whole occurred, so far as is at present known, the 
oldest of the cavern deposits. It was composed of subangular and 
rounded pieces of dark-red grit, embedded in a sandy paste of the 
same colour. Small angular fragments of limestone, and investing 
films of stalagmite, both prevalent in the cave-earth, were extremely 
rare. Large blocks of limestone were occasionally met with; and 
the deposit, to which the name of breccia were given, was of a depth 
exceeding that to which the exploration has yet been carried. 
Except in a very few small branches, the bottom of the cavern 
has nowhere been reached. In the cases in which there was no 
cave-earth, the granular stalagmite rested immediately on the 
crystalline; and where the crystalline stalagmite was not present 
the cave-earth and breccia were in direct contact. Large isolated 
masses of the crystalline stalagmite, as well as concreted lumps of 
the breccia, were. occasionally met with in the cave-earth, thus 
showing that the older deposits had, in portions of the cavern, been 
partially broken up, dislodged, and re-deposited. No instance was 
met with of the incorporation in a lower bed of fragments derived 
from an upper one. In short, wherever all the deposits were found 
in one and the same yertical section, the order of superposition 
