268 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Feb. 4, 



majority of the teeth, show that they alone introduced the remains 

 which were found in such abundance. 



4. Position of some of the Remains. — A glance, however, at the 

 vertical sections will show that some of the remains are not now in 

 the exact position they occupied in the days of the Hyaena. The 

 maximum distance of the bone-layers from the roof is but eight 

 inches, a space manifestly too small to allow of the Hyaena devour- 

 ing his prey ; while in many instances the remains actually touched 

 the roof. This, indeed, has been used as an argument in favour of 

 their having been introduced by water from some unknown reposi- 

 tory. On this supposition the introducing current of water must 

 either have passed down the vertical passages or through the hori- 

 zontal mouth of the antrum. In the former case the three bone- 

 layers would not have been found in the narrow passages, but would 

 have been swept out into the wide antrum, where the force of the 

 hypothetical current must have abated. In the latter ease the great 

 bulk of the remains would have been found in the antrum, and not 

 in the smaller passages and innermost crannies of the cave. But, 

 apart from this evidence, the absence of marks of watery action 

 upon the organic remains, and especially of that sorting action which 

 water, as a conveying agent, always manifests, and in no case more 

 remarkably than in the lower jaws of the Stonesfield Mammals, 

 makes the hypothesis of their introduction by water untenable *. 



The evidence, indeed, as to the cause of the position of some of 

 the remains is most conflicting. Their condition, their distribution 

 in the cave, and especially the presence of two gnawed rami of the 

 same lower jaw of Hyama, found a few feet apart in the passage B, 

 of two gnawed fragments of the same upper jaw of the Irish 

 Elk, also found apart in the passage D, of the right and left lower 

 molars of the same Elephant, and the right upper and lower molars 

 of a second, also in the passage D, all prove that the organic remains 

 were not introduced by water. On the other hand, the horizontality 

 of the layers, the presence of layers of peroxide of manganese, of 

 the red sediment, and of the sand, show that water certainly was 

 an agent in rearranging and introducing some of the contents of the 

 cave. The only solution of this difficulty that I can hazard is the 

 occurrence of floods during the occupation by the Hyaenas, and per- 

 haps for some time afterwards, similar to those which now, from 

 time to time, take place in the caverns of the neighbourhood. 



5. Introduction of the Red Earth. — A few years ago the outlet of 

 the stream flowing through the great cavern at Wookey Hole was 

 blocked up, and the water rose in it to a height of upwards of sixteen 

 feet, and left a horizontal deposit of red earth similar, in every 

 particular, to that of the Hyeena-den. Now, if we suppose that 

 similar floods were caused by an obstruction in the ravine below 

 the Hyaena-den, it may have been flooded just as the upper galleries 



* The caverns of the Liege district, explored by Dr. Schmerling, were filled, 

 without exception, by the action of water, and contain in many cases water- worn 

 bones. Schmerling, Kecherchea sur les Ossements Fossiles decouverts dans les 

 Cavernes de la Province de Liege, vol. i. pp. 18. 10. 



