274 ORGANIC REMAINS. 



Owing to the oozing of water through the cracks and pores of 

 the rock, the roof and walls were found in most places incrusted with 

 stalactites, forming beautiful pillars, icicles, and mammillae or cones; 

 some of them highly crystalline and translucent, shewing in their 

 cross sections a radiated structure, like that of belemnites. Bones 

 and teeth, mixed with marly clay, were found dispersed along the 

 floor, especially in the broadest places, presenting the same ap- 

 pearance as in the first part of the cave. It deserves to be remarked 

 also, that here, as in the celebrated caverns of Gaylenreuth in 

 Germany, some bones were found on the sides of the cave, at or near 

 the roof, incrusted with stalactites ; a clear proof, that the caverns 

 have been filled with water, which floating the bones, lodged some of 

 them in crevices or on ledges towards the top, where, after the with- 

 drawment of the water, they have been incased with stalactitic matter. 

 Such bones, however, like those on the floor, are not petrified, but 

 only preserved. It is scarcely necessary to add, that none of the 

 bones are found imbedded in the rock itself, which exhibits only the 

 shells most common in the oolite. 



Though our cavern cannot bear a comparison with similar caves 

 in Germany, in point of extent; yet it appears to surpass them and 

 all other caves of this sort hitherto explored, in the variety of the 

 relics entombed in it. The skill of a Cuvier would be requisite to 

 assign them accurately to their several genera and species ; but the 

 following animals may be distinguished. 



Elephant. — The grinders of the elephant occur in broken frag- 

 ments ; one of which, belonging to John Holt, Jun. Esq., shews two 

 double plates, with part of other two, from the front of the tooth; 

 which appears to have been of the same size as the grinder figured in 

 PI. XYII, No. I. As the fracture is not recent, the tooth would 

 seem to have been broken before it was deposited here. Several very 

 large femoral and crural bones, some of which measure above six 

 inches in thickness at the joints, probably belong to the elephant. 



