THE BONE-OAVK OR FISSURE OP DITRDnAM DOWN. 37 



somo oases connoctod by lateral galleries running along tho 

 lino of lissuro, whilst at certain points distinct pipe-liko 

 clefts proceeded vertically downwards to considerable bnt 

 unproved depths ; and that the whole of these cavities, whicli 

 were in the first place excavated by the chemical erosion of 

 percolating rainwater, had subsequently become more or 

 loss completely filled up with cavo-earth and stalagmite, in 

 wliich the bones and teeth of tlio various animals above re- 

 ferred to wore entombed. 



Whilst admitting that the balance of evidence is distinctly 

 in favour of the hypothesis that the "Durdham Down Cave" 

 served as a haunt for beasts of prey, we cannot help noticing 

 the somewhat awkward sort of a den such a narrow, vertical, 

 and interrupted cavity would be for an animal like a hyrena. 

 Probably, however, the entrance to the fissure was facilitated 

 by the slope there appears to have been in its walls, and 

 perhaps also by a talus of cave-earth at the period when it 

 was occupied by those animals. 



This difficulty appears to have struck an anonymous 

 writer at the time, as will be seen from the following 

 extract from the The Geologist, for which I am indebted to 

 the courtesy of Mr. F. W. Rudler, T.G.S., llegistrar of 

 the Royal School of Mines : 



" Organic Eemains. — A quantity of bones of the bear, 

 hyauia, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, door, and elephant^ 

 have been discovered in a cave in the Mountain Lime- 

 stone at Durdham Down, Bristol, and the peculiarity of 

 the circumstance is that tlioy woi-o found in a fissure 

 only, which, as far as can be ascertained, extends a very 

 considerable depth lower than the workmen have ever yet 

 gone. This is not the case in other places, where the bones 

 n,ro all found in caverns, which would appear in somo mea- 

 sure to r(^fnte fJio theory of cortnin pbilosophors, viz., that 



