OSSIFEROUS CAVES OF GIBRALTAR. 557 



Apart from the still immature state of the investigations, 

 it would be quite beyond the limits within which we are re- 

 stricted in this communication for us to enter in detail upon 

 the conclusions to which the data furnished by the fossil re- 

 mains lead ; we shall therefore confine ourselves to a few of 

 the more important general points. 



The rock is now bared of natural forest-trees, and destitute 

 of wild animals, with the exception of the hare, rabbit, fox, 

 badger, and a few magot monkeys, the last in all probability 

 the descendants of introduced animals. The fossil remains of 

 the ' Genista Cave ' establish beyond question that the rock 

 was formerly either peopled by, or the occasional resort of, 

 large quadrupeds like the elephant, rhinoceros, aurochs, deer, 

 ibex, wild horse, boar, &c, which were preyed upon by hyaenas, 

 leopards, the African lynx, and serval : that the remains 

 were transported by any violent diluvial agency from a dis- 

 tance is opposed to all the evidence of the case. The manner 

 in which they were introduced into the Windmill Hill Cave 

 we believe to have been thus : — The surface of the rock and 

 its level in relation to the sea were formerly different from 

 what we now see. The wild animals above enumerated, dur- 

 ing a long series of ages, lived and died upon the rock. Their 

 bones lay scattered about the surface, and in the vast ma- 

 jority of instances crumbled into dust, and disappeared under 

 the influence of exposure to the sun and other atmospheric 

 agencies, as constantly happens under similar circumstances 

 at the present day. But a certain proportion of them were 

 strewed in hollows along the lines of natural drainage when 

 heavy rains fell ; the latter, for the time converted into tor- 

 rents, swept the bones, with mud, shells, and other surface- 

 materials, into the fissures that intercepted their course ; 

 there the extraneous objects were arrested by the irregulari- 

 ties of the passages, and subsequently solidified into a con- 

 glomerate mass by long-continued calcareous infiltration. 

 That elephants frequented the rock is proved by a valuable 

 and perfect specimen of the penultimate upper molar tooth 

 of an extinct species, which we have ascertained to be Ele- 

 phas antiquus discovered by Mr. Smith of Jordan Hill, in a 

 sea-beach on Europa Point, 70 feet above the level of the 

 sea. That the hyaenas were dwellers upon the rock is also 

 established by the fact that, in addition to numerous bones, 

 we have discovered a considerable quantity of coprolites of 

 Hycena brunnea 1 among the ' Genista Cave ' relics. Some of 

 the species must have peopled the rock in vast numbers. We 

 infer, upon a rough estimate, that we have passed through 

 our hands bones derived from at least two or three hundred 



1 See antca, p, 556, note 2. — [En.] 



