2. A similar but less mutilated skull, wanting the lower jaw, of the great 

 Cave Bear : this is the original specimen described and figured by John 

 Hunter, toe. c'tt., pi. xix., fig. 2. 



bones. The stalactical covering of the uneven-sides of the cave does not reach quite down to its bot- 

 tom, whereby it plainly appears that this vast collection of animal rubbish some time ago filled a higher 

 space in the cave, before the bulk of it sunk by mouldering. 



" This place is in appearance very like a large quarry of sandstones ; and indeed the largest and 

 finest blocks of osteolithical concretes might be hewn out in any number, if there was but room enough 

 to come to them, and to carry them out. This bony rock has been dug into in different places, and 

 everywhere undoubted proofs have been met with, that its bed, or this osteolithical stratum, extends 

 every way far beneath and through the limestone rock into which and through which these caverns 

 have been made ; so that the queries suggesting themselves about the astonishing numbers of animals 

 buried here confound all speculation. 



" Along the sides of this third cavern there are some narrower openings, leading into different smaller 

 chambers, of which it cannot be said how deep they go. In some of them bones of smaller animals 

 have been found, such as jaw-bones, vertebrae, and tibia?, in large heaps. The bottom of this cave 

 slopes toward a passage seven feet high, and about as wide, being the entrance to a 



" Fourth cave, twenty feet high and fifteen wide, lined all round with a stalactical crust, and gra- 

 dually sloping .to another steep descent, where the ladder is wanted a second time, and must be used 

 with caution as before, in order to get into a cave forty feet high and about half as wide. In those deep 

 and spacious hollows, worked out through the most solid mass of rock, you again perceive with as- 

 tonishment immense numbers of bony fragments of all kinds and sizes, sticking everywhere in the sides 

 of the cave, or lying on the bottom. This cave also is surrounded by several smaller ones ; in one of 

 them rises a stalactite of uncommon bigness, being four feet high and eight feet diameter, in the form 

 of a truncated cone. In another of those side grottos, a very neat stalactical pillar presents itself, five 

 feet in height, and eight inches in diameter. 



" The bottom of all these grottos is covered with true animal mould, out of which may be dug frag- 

 ments of bones. 



" Besides the smaller hollows, spoken of before, round this fourth cave, a very narrow opening has 

 been discovered in one of its corners. It is of very difficult access, as it can be entered only in a 

 crawling posture. This dismal and dangerous passage leads into a fifth cave, of near thirty feet high, 

 forty-three long, and of unequal breadth. To the depth of six feet this cave has been dug, and nothing 

 has been found but fragments of bones and animal mould. The sides are finely decorated with sta- 

 lactites of different forms and colours; but even this stalactical crust is filled with fragments of bones 

 sticking in it, up to the very roof. 



" From this remarkable cave another very low and narrow avenue leads into the last discovered, or 

 the 



." Sixth cave, not very large, and merely covered with a stalactical crust, in which, however, here 

 and there bones are seen sticking. And here ends this connected series of most remarkable osteoli- 

 thical caverns, as far as they have been hitherto explored ; many more may for what we know exist, 

 hidden, in the same tract of hills." 



B 2 



