164 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



trust the defensive structures to have been its work, and had 

 social institutions, at a time when the Rhinoceros and extinct 

 Reindeer had not departed. An obscure and remote tradition 

 pervading the present inhabitants, that, among other localities, 

 there existed caverns on the right side of the river, replete 

 with wondrous treasures, an entrance into one was at length 

 searched for, and in 1825, digging in a spot judged to be favor- 

 able, at the depth of three feet, the excavators found a human 

 skeleton, and an iron tool of a forked shape. They continued 

 to sink a shaft to the depth of eighteen metres, about fifty-six 

 English feet, until they encountered a stone harrier of human 

 workmanship; and having forced a passage, the workmen dis- 

 covered three branches or natural galleries, and passed by one 

 of them into the desired cavern. Instead of treasures, however, 

 human bones were found in great quantities. They were 

 mostly disposed in the crevices of the rock, with evident care, 

 and others were pressed regularly into a cavity, and covered 

 with a flat slab, surrounded by a circle of very clean white 

 stones. By the precautions that had been taken to block up 

 every entrance with walls of stone, and the success with which 

 it had been performed, — (since the shaft by which an opening 

 was forced did not reach the real entrance), — the whole mani- 

 fested that it had been a tribal necropolis, formed with great 

 respect for the dead, at the same time that a strong impres- 

 sion was created of its remote antiquity, from the circumstance 

 of these human remains being accompanied by the head and 

 three teeth of a Rhinoceros, antlers of a small species of Rein- 

 deer, the head of an extinct species of Stag, the shoulder-blade 

 of a very large Bovine, and the canon bone of a Horse. In 

 this case, we hear of no stalagmite, no red loam ; there is no 

 mention of Hyenas or other carnivorous animals, and only a 

 few remains of herbivora, which may have been deposited in 

 the human ossuary, because they had served for sacrificial 

 purposes in honor of the dead. It is not probable, if they had 

 been found in the locality, when cleared for a sacred purpose, 



