252 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



TJie Fortland Ossiferous Fissures. 



Ste, — In answer to the objections, which you have made in the last 

 number of the ' Geologist,' to my opinion of the cause of the remains of 

 men and of extinct mammalia being found in fissures of the Portland 

 rock, which fissures do not extend to the surface of the rock, will you allow 

 me to make a few observations ? 



In the first place, I think there can be no doubt that human and other 

 bones have been thus found. This fact, as I have before stated, is positively 

 asserted in ' Willis's Current Notes ' for August, 1852, and in an article in 

 the ' Times ' of the 1st of last January ; and has been frequently con- 

 firmed to me by Captain Manning, of Portland Castle, who has shown me 

 the bones of men, of elk, reindeer, elephant, and of other animals which 

 were found associated together in fissures, which, he said, did not extend 

 to the surface of the rock. You say : " How could there be a fissure 

 before the rock was consolidated, and are we to believe that the ele- 

 phants, etc., and men too, lived at the bottom of the sea, as they must 

 be supposed to have done if we accept Mr. Allen's theory ?" But in both 

 of my letters, I said that I believed that the human and other bones must 

 have been imbedded in the rock before its consolidation, and consequently 

 before the existence of any fissures ; and that, therefore, the men and ani- 

 mals to whom they belonged must have lived on some other dry land, 

 which probably no longer exists. My opinion is, that these fissures were 

 gradually formed in the semi-fiuid limestone deposit, partly b} r the human 

 and other remains embedded in it and the putrid vapours arising from their 

 corrupting bodies, and partly by the contraction of the calcareous deposit 

 during the process of its drying. I believe that all the remains were im- 

 bedded in the soft limestone at that interchange of land and sea of which 

 M. Cuvier speaks in the following words: — "I conclude," he says, "with 

 M. de Luc and M. Dolomieu, that if there be any fact well established in 

 geology it is this, that the surface of our globe has suffered a great and 

 sudden revolution, the period of which cannot be dated further back than 

 five or six thousand years. This revolution has, on one hand, engulfed 

 and caused to disappear the countries formerly inhabited by men and the 

 animal species at present best known, and, on the other, has laid bare the 

 bed of the last ocean, thus converting its channel into the present habita- 

 ble earth." I think, also, that there is the strongest geological proof that 

 the remains of extinct quadrupeds found in caverns in limestone, were im- 

 bedded in the limestone before its consolidation, and, consequently, before 

 the existence of the caverns themselves ; and that therefore the animals to 

 whom they belonged must have previously inhabited some other dry land. 

 For there is evidence that many of these caverns hare had no mouths 

 as none have as yet been discovered, at Oreston, near Plymouth. Dr. 

 Buckland, in his ' Heliquise Diluvianaj,' mentions three of these caverns, 

 in which were numerous remains of extinct mammalia, which were only 

 discovered by men digging in a quarry for stone for building the Plymouth 

 breakwater. lie says that these caverns were "discovered by Mr. 

 Whidbey in removing the entire mass of a hill of transition limestone, and 

 that none of them had any discoverable communication with the surface 

 of the earth. In the ' Times ' of January 22, 1859, I read a statement 

 that "there had recently been discovered in one of the limestone quarries 

 at Oreston, the teeth, bones, and other remains of lions, tigers, elephants, 

 rhinoceroses, horses, hyaenas, and other animals. The cavern from which 

 the fossils w r ere extracted was situated in the solid rock in the cliff of a 

 quarry. There was no aperture or other indication of its locality. 



