Scharkf, Skymour, and Newton — Castlepook Cave. 43 



deposited on the rocky bottom, and the hall thus formed inhabited by the 

 extinct animals, and also that stalagmite had formed before that fauna had 

 disappeared. One difference between this and the former halls is that the 

 space between the upper stalagmite (observable in parts of galleries that 

 remain) and this second or lower floor is very much less. We had to cut 

 bones out of this stalagmite with a cold chisel. Others of Mammoth, Bear, 

 Hyaena, and Reindeer were met with either loose among rubble or in sand 

 under this stalagmite ; a tibia and horns of Eeindeer showed marks of the 

 teeth of rodents, but had been subsequently coated with sandy mud over the 

 tooth-marks, showing that these were ancient. 



The west side of the low hall was open into the side of the largest gallery 

 in Hyaena Land. It extends north and south beyond the limits of the low 

 hall, and from the teeth of old Bears and Hyaenas found there I called it the 

 Gallery of the Aged Carnivores (19). Portions of the upper stalagmite 

 remain two or three inches below the roof bridging over the gallery, seven 

 feet wide. Under this was an empty space, and then pale, barren sand on the 

 surface covering the darker sand-bed, which was rich in bones. Among the 

 first of these was part of a Mammoth's mandible with molar tooth. We first 

 excavated the sand northward to a depth of 3 feet uutil at 19 feet we were 

 stopped by an earthfall, and we then worked back southwards, digging deeper. 

 The bone-sand contained great numbers of remains of the above animals from 

 Mammoth to Lemming, including two bones of Irish Elk, and notably jaws 

 and teeth of Hyaena, a cranium of which was found deep in a fissure or 

 swallow-hole on the east side. There were also coprolites of this animal, and 

 remains of very old and very young Bears. Reindeers' bones were plentiful, 

 and the recesses at the sides of the gallery were specially prolific. 



We then worked this gallery southward (where it was 8 feet wide) for 

 17 feet, and there a pile of fallen stone and earth stopped further progress. 

 In this part we discovered a broken skull and other bones of Wolf, and a 

 very brittle skull of Fox was 3 feet deep under sand packed with stones. 

 At various points and depths were rounded pieces of sandstone or cobbles. 

 These could not have been intruded with earthfalls at a later date unless the 

 whole sand-bed with its profusion of bones was remanM. The objection to 

 such a supposition is that delicate skulls lay in the same sand-stratum with 

 heavy blocks of limestone and stalagmite, and where the latter had fallen its 

 remains lay buried 3 feet or more under the bones. The pale barren sand 

 had indeed been drifted in on the surface, but beneath that all seemed 

 undisturbed since the deposition of the animal remains. 



On the west side of the above gallery is a large water-worn orifice, sloping 

 north, which leads into the parallel Gallery of the Elephants' Teeth 



[F2] 



