CURRENTS WITH CAVERNS. 



305 



The most I'emarkable of these caverns are those of Gaylenreuth, 

 on the left bank of the river Wiesent, in Bavaria ; they vary in height 

 fronri ten to forty feet, and are connected by narrow low passages. 

 The animal earth intermingled with bones, is in many places more 

 than ten feet deep ; and according to the account of a German wri- 

 ter, M. Esper, would fill many hundred waggons. The cavern, or 

 series of caverns, at Adlesberg, in Carniola, is much larger than any 

 in Germany : the caves are of variable dimensions, and are stated to 

 extend more than three leagues in a right line, at which distance 

 there is a lake which prevents further access. The floors of these 

 caverns are covered with indurated clay, enveloping the bones of 

 bears, and other carnivorous animals, similar to those in the caverns 

 of Germany and Hungary. In one part of this cavern, or series of 

 caverns, the entire skeleton of a young bear was discovered, envel- 

 oped in clay or mud, between blocks of limestone which lay on one 

 side of the cave. Bones are found along the cavern, for several 

 miles from the entrance, not only buried in mud, which forms the 

 floor, but among heaps composed of blocks of limestone and yellow 

 mud or clay. This cavern is situated near the great road from Tri- 

 este to Laybach. 



In many of the caverns in the south of France, and also in Bel- 

 gium, there are found bones in the mud and gravel which form the 

 floor, but which is sometimes coated with stalagmite. 



The intermixture of human bones and rude works of art, with the 

 bones of extinct species of mammiferous quadrupeds has excited 

 great attention. In some instances, the human bones appear to be 

 reduced to what has been called the same fossil state, as that of the 

 animal bones with which they are intermixed. Much more import- 

 ance has been attached to this circumstance than I think it deserves ; 

 for, in the first place, few if any bones of mammiferous land quadru- 

 peds found in caverns, or in diluvial soil, can be properly said to be 

 fossilized, as they retain a part of their original matter ; and, se- 

 condly, the experiments of Dr. Jenner, stated in p. 19., prove, that 

 when recent bones are immersed in mud containing pyrites or solu- 

 tions of iron, they become more or less fossilized in a few months. 

 Some of the caverns in the south of France, according to M. Des- 

 noyers, were partly filled with bones of quadrupeds before human 

 bones were introduced into them ; others appear to have been emp- 

 ty. He observes, how often may these caverns have served as buri- 

 al places to the ancient inhabitants, or, at a more recent period, as 

 places of retreat during religious persecutions, from the persecutions 

 of the Druids to those of the Huguenots. The historian Florus (he 

 adds) expressly informs us, that the inhabitants of Aquitaine, an art- 

 ful people, retired into caverns, and that Caesar gave orders to have 

 them closed in their retreats, and left to perish. " Aquitani, calli- 

 dum genus, in speluncas se recipiebant, jussit includi." — Flor. lib. 

 iii. cap, 10. 



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