682 J. MAGENS HELLO ON SOME BONE-CAVES IN CRESWELL CRAGS. 



lar bedding in this sand ; only here and there its character was modi- 

 fied by the decomposition of some of the limestone blocks. From 

 the surface downwards bones were found in great abundance in all 

 parts of this bed ; but they were specially massed together at the 

 bottom of it. The bones were much broken, and many of them very 

 evidently gnawed by Hyaenas, of which animals numerous teeth and 

 fragments of the lower jaws were found. Many of the longer bones lay 

 with their long axes parallel to the sides of the fissure, and with 

 their heavier ends foremost. Other bones were wedged together 

 close to the sides in masses consisting of vertebrae, parts of leg-bones, 

 and of antlers. The bones are in various stages of preservation, some 

 being very decomposed and fragile, others very fresh-looking, although 

 lying side by side with them ; in all probability there has been a certain 

 amount of rearrangement of the bones at an early period by the flow 

 of water through the fissure, which appears to have been at one time 

 a hyaena-den. One large fragment of mammoth's bone partly ex- 

 tended from the sand bed into the surface-soil ; and at some distance 

 in, a fine molar of the same animal was found, about 1 foot below the 

 top of the bed. Several very perfect molars of Rhinoceros tichorhinus 

 and portions of antlers of deer were obtained at this point, together 

 with some of the hyaena-jaws already mentioned; two large fragments 

 of the leg-bones of the rhinoceros and a number of smaller leg-bones 

 lay not very far apart near the same spot, where a huge block of 

 limestone had apparently caused an obstruction. Where the fissure 

 was contracted by projecting portions of rock which were. partly 

 undermined, the sand was of a very calcareous nature, being full of 

 angular pieces of the limestone, many of which were of a soft and 

 crumbly nature. There were not so many bones here, the few found 

 being very fragmentary and friable ; and at present very few bones 

 have been met with at the back of the barrier. This is a thing 

 difficult to understand upon the hypothesis of the bones having been 

 carried into the fissure from the back, which was the opinion I 

 had first formed, basing it upon the parallelism of the larger bones 

 to the sides of the fissure. Professor Busk has very kindly examined 

 and named the numerous bones found in this fissure (A), the list of 

 which is appended to this paper. 



Besides the remains of larger animals, great quantities of teeth and 

 other bones of small rodents (Arvicola &c.)were disseminated through- 

 out the sand, which also contained some cycloid fish-scales, and a 

 few vertebrae of some fish. 



The sand bed No. 3, on which the bone-bearing bed rests, is 

 sharply defined from it, being much lighter in colour ; it is highly 

 calcareous and is consolidated into semiconcretionary-looking masses 

 below the rocky barrier already alluded to. At this point I cut into 

 it to a depth of 1 foot without finding any trace of the bones which 

 were so abundant immediately above it. At present I have not 

 been able to ascertain its thickness, and I have nowhere reached the 

 bottom of the fissure. 



Some hundred yards or so lower down the ravine a large cavern, 

 ' ; Eobin Hood's Cave " (cavern B), is met with, containing four or five 



