308 



KIRKDALE GAVE. 



bones are no where discovered in the regular tertiary strata. The 

 country that could give support to the mammoth, or ancient elephant, 

 to the mastodon, and the elk, might, for aught v^^e know to the con- 

 trary, be also suited for the residence of man. 



It is very different with respect to the secondary strata ;. for though 

 many of these strata have once been dry land, or in the vicinity of 

 dry land, yet we no where find in them the bones of herbivorous 

 mammalian quadrupeds, that could have been with men joint tenants 

 of the globe ; nor even do we find bones of carnivorous quadrupeds 

 that might have preyed upon the former, had they existed. 



During the tertiary epoch, however, there is evidence of great 

 revolutions of the surface, by the elevation of mountain ranges, which 

 might, perhaps, render the earth unfit, for the continued existence 

 of the human species ; and I am inclined to believe, that the occur- 

 rence of human bones in caverns, or in diluvial beds of gravel, sand 

 or mud, has not yet invalidated the position, that the creation of man 

 was posterior to the tertiary epoch. 



We come now to the English caverns : they have been more re- 

 cently the object of attention than the bone caverns of Germany ; 

 but their discovery may be said to have given a new impulse to 

 geology, both in this country and on the Continent, for which we are 

 indebted chiefly to the enlightened and indefatigable exertions of 

 Professor Buckland of Oxford. 



Single skeletons of large quadrupeds have formerly been discover- 

 ed in caverns in this country ; but we had no authentic account of the 

 bones of carnivorous animals having been found in any English caves, 

 previously to the year 1821 ; when some labourers, working in a quarry 

 at Kirkdale, near Kirby Moorside, in Yorkshire, discovered an open- 

 ing covered over with rubbish and earth, about one hundred feet 

 above the neighbouring brook. This was the mouth of a low cav- 

 ern extending about two hundred feet into the rock. The floor of 

 the cavern was covered with broken bones and teeth of various ani- 

 mals, encased in a stratum of mud about a foot thick. Fortunately 

 this cavern was examined by Professor Buckland, of Oxford, soon 

 after its discovery, who has published a very luminous account of its 

 structure and contents, elucidated by references to the most remark- 

 able caverns in other countries which he has visited, containing the 

 bones of carnivorous animals. The bones in the Kirkdale Cave are 

 broken and gnawed, and some of them preserve the marks of the 

 teeth which have fractured them. Even the excrements of animals, 

 similar to those of the hyena, have been discovered with them. The 

 bones in this cave differ much from those in the caves of Germany, 

 as a great number of them belong to herbivorous animals, and the 

 CBrnivorous animals whose remains are most abundant are hyenas. 



Among these remains. Professor Buckland has ascertained bones 

 of the following orders : — 



Carnivorous Quadrupeds,— The hyena, tiger, bear, wolf, fox and 

 weasel 



