BEACHES, ETC., OE THE SOUTH OE ENGLAND. 337 



fissures. Buckland saw that in such cases the entire skeleton ought 

 to be found, and suggested that after the decay of the carcasses the 

 fall of water and debris into the fissures broke up and dispersed the 

 skeletons. But this only shifts the difficulty. 



The objection seems to me a fatal one. It is impossible to con- 

 ceive that, out of the many fissures explored, entire skeletons, or at 

 all events all the separate bones of the skeletons of the animals that 

 are supposed to have fallen in, should not be commonly met with. 

 But this has only happened in a few rare instances, of which Wirks- 

 worth is one, although the bones of separate limbs are said to be 

 occasionally found in connexion. Yet the abundance of separate 

 bones in some cases is remarkable. In the collection made by 

 Mr. Cottle on two visits to Oreston, there were ^ : — 



1587 teeth of Horse, Ox, Deer, Wolf, Hyaena, Tiger, Hare, 



Water-rat, Weasel. 

 147 jaws of Wolf, Horse, Pox, Deer, Hyaena, Ox, Tiger, Hare, 



Boar. 

 250 vertebrae and 26 skulls and portions of skulls of various of 



the above. 3 horn-cores of Ox. 

 1000 fragments without distinct characters. 



So far from the fissures having been long open, a diametrically 

 opposite conclusion is forced upon us. They certainly were not 

 open during Glacial times, otherwise they would have received the 

 worn and characteristic debris of that period. Nor could the ossife- 

 rous fissures of Devonshire have been open during the Cave period. 

 FoT they were so numerous that, had it been so, the result antici- 

 pated by Buckland could hardly have been avoided, and many animals 

 must have been lost in them whose entire remains should be found, 

 according to this view, in all such fissures. But this is not the case. 

 In many fissures bones are absent, while in others they occur de- 

 tached, isolated, and unrelated, in patches throughout the breccia. 

 Nor is the difficulty removed by another suggestion that the fissures 

 during the Glacial winters were filled with snow, so that they served 

 as traps to the animals. This no doubt would be under certain 

 conditions a vera causa, but the same objection remains as that which 

 applies to the original suggestion. 



I conclude therefore that the fissures were opened out at a time 

 immediately preceding the Rubble-drift or simultaneously with it, 

 and that they were in all probability one of the results of the 

 disturbances accompanying the several uplifts of the land which 

 followed after the submergence. 



De la Beche observed of some of the clay at Oreston that it was 

 " apparently impregnated with animal matter," ^ and the remark 

 has been frequently repeated, but I am not aware that any definite 

 analysis of the clay has been made. Mr. Worth says that " the inti- 

 mate association and order of many of the bones proves that at the 



1 Quoted by Mr. Worth, Journ. Plymouth Inst. vol. vii. (1879) p. 92. 

 ^ ' Eeport on the Geology of Devon, Cornwall, &c.' p. 413. 



