156 NATURAL HIST0B1 01 



Monte Nuovo, near Naples; and not within the sphere of 

 action when that crater rose out of the earth. 



VALE OF KOSTRITZ. 



An instance more remarkably clear, because more carefully 

 observed, is that of the vale of Kostritz, near the river Elster, 

 in Upper Saxony, where, about fifty years ago, gypsum quarries 

 were opened, in a generally undulating country, sufficiently 

 elevated to preclude all supposition that inundations can have 

 had the least influence on the deposits, since the present geo- 

 logical arrangement, and without external evidence of the exist- 

 ence of any caverns. The soil is of the usual red loam, which, 

 both in France and in England, encloses organic remains, and 

 here, as in South Devon, covers the limestone formation of the 

 whole country. Masses of stalactites occur beneath the surface, 

 and, at the depth of twenty feet, bones of large land animals 

 were discovered in the loam of the greater cavities. At Kos- 

 tritz, in particular, the gypsum is intersected by caves and 

 fissures in every direction, and connected with each other, but 

 filled throughout with red alluvial clay, containing in clusters 

 bones of mammalia, and, among them, of man. They were 

 first described, in a lucid manner, by Baron von Schlotheim, 

 who summed up his account by saying : — <: It is evident that 

 the human bones could not have been buried here, nor have 

 fallen into fissures during battles in ancient times. The human 

 bones are few, completely detached and isolated. Nor could 

 they have been thus mutilated and lodged by any other acci- 

 dental cause in more modern times, inasmuch as they are 

 always found with the other animal remains, under the same 

 relations, not constituting connected skeletons, but gathered in 

 various, groups," &c. Beside those of man, of different peri- 

 ods of life, from infancy to mature age, the bones of Rhinoce- 

 ros, a great Feline, Hyena, Horse, Ox, Deer, Hare, and Rabbit, 

 bones of an Owl were found; and, since the paper of the baron 



