171 



1S69.] ^ ' ■•• [Cope. 



Synopsis of the Extinct Mammalia of the Cave formations in the 

 United States, with observations on some Myiuapoda pound in 

 and near the same, and on some Extinct Mammals of the caves 



of AnGUILLA, W. I., AND OP OTHER LOCALITIES. 



By Edward D. Cope. 



The following list is publislied in consequence of the discovery by the 

 writer of a nvimber of species of Mammalia in a cave breccia in Virginia. 

 As the number of species i^reviously described as having been found in 

 similar situations is but small, they have been added. I have not inserted 

 the extra- cave species of the beds known as Champlain, since it is not 

 certain that they represent parts of the same fauna, though it is highly 

 probable that they do. The coexistence of a number of species appar- 

 ently still living on our territory, with some restricted to South America, 

 and with others e,ntirely extinct, is a point of considerable interest. The 

 cotemporaneity of man with the Mastodon on this continent is not a mat- 

 ter of doubt* ; and the coexistence of the Mastodon and recent peccary 

 D. torquatus, and the extinct D. compressus is equally certain. These 

 species were cotemporaneous at Galena, with a fauna quite similar to that 

 which I found in Virginia. 



The cave breccia consists, in the localities where examined by me, of a 

 number of irregular masses, occupying depressions and short galleries, in 

 the southeast side of a line of hills in Wythe County, Virginia. When 

 these masses are excavated from their beds the floor and roof of a portion 

 of a cave is exposed, with the stalactites, stalagmites, and usual incrus- 

 tations. Sometimes the termini of the masses could not be reached, and 

 they wound about between large blocks of limestone which once, no 

 doubt, had lain on the floor of a subterranean chamber. 



The teeth and bones were discovered at three different points ; two of 

 them near together, on the property of Abraham Painter, and the third 

 about three miles on the . same side of the same ridge. The Kanawha 

 (New) River cuts the hill at the latter point, and on the side of a bluff 

 the cavity occurred, containing Castor, Dicotyles, etc. On the other side 

 of the same ridge, three miles further in the same direction, I examined 

 several similar cavities of breccia, but could find no organic remains, 

 while Abraham Painter, an old resident and careful observer, informed 

 me that the deposit could be found on the hill side, in continuation of 

 those on his propei'ty, for a distance of two miles in the opposite direction. 

 The limestone of this ridge abounds in the Carbonates of Lead and 

 Zinc, and there can be little doubt that they predispose the rock to easy 

 decomposition. It is also probable that, as Lesley shows, the decomposi- 

 tion has been followed by the successive deposit, as a precipitate of the 

 more insoluble Silicates of those metals. This is rendered highly prob- 

 able'by the mode in which the silicates occur with reference to the car- 

 bonates. While the latter are distributed through the limestone rock 



* Se3 Leidy, Nott and Gliddon Indigenous Races of the Earth, p. xviii. 



