460 Bone Caves. 



Close to Clapham, in Yorkshire, in the grounds of 

 Ingleborough, such a cave runs from the side of a 

 limestone gorge into the hill, 800 yards in length, and 

 no doubt further if it were followed. From its top, 

 ' like natural sculpture in cathedral cavern,' beautiful 

 stalactitic pendants and pillars descend to the floor ; 

 delicate open arcades run along the ledges, large fretted 

 accretions of stalagmite swell out in the angles of the 

 cavern between the floor and sides, and great flat 

 pendants of stalactite hang like petrified banners from 

 the walls. Sometimes the cavern runs in a long low 

 gallery, sometimes it rises into high chambers, scooped 

 into ogee arches ; and wherever a chamber occurs, there 

 we find a joint in the rocks, through which water from 

 above percolates, and continues the work of sculpture. 

 The whole is the result of the dissolving of carbonate 

 of lime by carbonic acid in the water ; and modern 

 drippings and a rivulet in the cavern still carry on the 

 work through all its length. White rats live in the cave, 

 and fresh-water shrimps, perhaps washed from above, 

 have been seen in the brooklet; but I am not aware 

 that any fossil bones have been found in it, though they 

 are common in other caverns in the same county near 

 Settle, in the Carboniferous Limestone of Derbyshire, 

 North and South Wales, the Mendip Hills, and in the 

 limestone caverns of many other parts of England. 



It is impossible to fix with absolute accuracy the 

 precise age of such caves, or the time when all the 

 bones that are fouud in them were buried there ; for the 



minent examples. At Ottawa a large part of the river falls into a 

 chasm in Silurian limestone and is seen no more. The perte du 

 Mhone, below the Lake of Geneva, is a minor example. The Caldes 

 of Yorkshire, where large brooks flow from limestone caves at the 

 sides of the valleys of mountain limestone, are well known. I have 

 already, p. 436, mentioned others in the Jura. 



