QUADRUPEDS. 271 



height; of which we have examples at Pickering, and in the quarry 

 on the west side of Kirkdale church, as well as in this quarry. 



In July last ( 1821 ), the labourers at the quarry, having removed 

 the alluvium from above a fresh piece of the rock, in the north part 

 of the quarry, and having wrought this rock downwards for a few feet, 

 discovered an oblong opening or cavern, running horizontally from 

 the slope of the bank eastward, and then making a turn to the north- 

 east, in which direction it was found to penetrate far into the rock. 



The operations of the workmen laid open that part of the cave 

 which extended from the bank to the remarkable turn now mentioned, 

 a distance of forty-six feet. The aperture towards the slope was 

 nearly square, being about two feet each way ; but it became con- 

 siderably wider towards the turn, and a little higher. The stratum 

 forming the floor was flat and unbroken, and was thickly covered 

 with bones and teeth, not lying in distinct skeletons, but strewed 

 about in the greatest confusion, and mixed with a soft marly earth, 

 apparently resulting from the decomposition of bones. The bones 

 had scarcely any appearance of being water- worn; a few of them 

 were tolerably entire, but the gi'eater part consisted of broken frag- 

 ments of leg bones, thigh bones, jaw bones, &c. ; and many of them 

 were greatly decomposed, being nearly in the state of phosphate of 

 lime, and ready to crumble into powder. The teeth were found, 

 partly in the fragments of jaws, and partly detached. The quantity 

 of bones, in this part of the cavern, was reckoned to exceed a cart- 

 load. The roof and sides of the cavern were, in many places, incrusted 

 with stalactites, masses of which were also mixed with the bones. 



It is of importance to observe, that the mouth of the cave had no 

 communication with the surface of the ground, being covered with the 

 alluvial beds on the slope, consisting of two feet of fragments of lime- 

 stone, or a kind of limestone gravel, which the workmen call rubbish, 

 covered by two feet of yellowish marl and soil. The vindisturbed 



