322 Notice and Review of the Reliquiae Diluvianae. 
the most surprising, and the only thing of the kind I ever 
witnessed; and many hundred, I may say thousand, indi- 
viduals must have contributed their remains to make up 
this appalling mass of the dust of death. Itseems in great 
part to be derived from comminuted and pulverized bone; 
for the fleshy parts of animal bodies produce by their de- 
composition so small a quantity of permanent earthy re- 
siduum, that we must seek for the origin of this mass prin- 
cipally in decayed bones. Allowing two cubic feet of dust 
and bones for each individual animal, we shall have in this 
single vault the remains of at least two thousand five hun- 
dred bears, a number which may have been supplied ia 
the space of one thousand years, by a mortality at the rate 
of two and a half per annum.” pp. 137, 138. . 
The osseous breccia of Gibraltar, Nice, Dalmatia, An- 
tibes, Pisa, and other places aloug the north shore of the 
Mediterranean, occurring in fissures in limestone, is the last 
instance produced by Mr. Buckland as analogous to the 
contents of the English caves and fissures. M. Cuvier, 
who has described the animals found in this breccia, was 
of opinion that it had been formed, and the bones envel- 
oped, since the last general diluvial catastrophe which our 
planet has experienced. But in a recent edition of his 
grand work on fossil remains, he abandons this opinion, 
and adopts that of Mr. Buckland, viz. that this breccia was 
consolidated in the antediluvian ages, and is referable to 
the same epoch with the breccia and diluvium containing 
bones in the English and German caves and fissures. We 
think every candid person, who reads his details concern- 
ing the Gibraltar breccia, will adopt his opinion. 
No instances of similar caves and fissures are quoted ‘n 
this work, beyond the boundaries of Europe. It is then a 
question, which every geologist will eagerly put, whether 
any thing of the like kind does occur in other quarters of 
the globe. We have felt a deeper interest in asking wheth- 
er our own country furnishes any such instances. But we 
have not had an opportunity, amid the pressure of other 
avocations, to examine as many of our public journals, and 
the works of travellers, as we could have wished, on this 
point. We think, however, that we have found some facts 
which, to say the least, render it extremely probable, that 
the American caves contain the same evidence of diluvial 
