CORRESPONDENCE. 



253 



Among the contents is the jaw of an animal of the horse species, in sta- 

 lagmite, exceedingly perfect." The fossils were said to be in the posses- 

 sion of Mr. J oseph, mineralogist, of Plymouth. In consequence of read- 

 ing this account, I wrote to Mr. Joseph, requesting him to have the kind- 

 ness to inform me whether the facts mentioned in the ' Times ' were in 

 every respect correct. He returned for answer that they were so ; and 

 said that there was no aperture in the cavern, and that some of the bones 

 were imbedded in " compact rock." It appears from Dr. Buckland's ' Ke- 

 liquise Diluvianss,' that almost all, if not all, bone-caverns which have aper- 

 tures through which the animals could have passed are situated in the face 

 of precipitous cliffs, produced, as Dr. Buckland says, by valleys of denu- 

 dation excavated by the retiring waters of a transient inundation. I 

 think, therefore, that except for the excavation of these valleys, the ex- 

 istence of the caverns would probably have never been known. The 

 Kirkdale cave itself, which is full of the remains of immense mammalia, 

 was, as Dr. Buckland says, only discovered by men digging in a quarry, 

 and thus laying open, to the extent of 30 feet, the cave itself, and forming, 

 in the perpendicular face of the quarry, an entrance of 3 feet high and 5 

 broad. Dr. Buckland thinks that there may be many similar caverns in 

 the neighbourhood of Kirkdale, whose existence can only be discovered 

 by " their casual intersection by some artificial operation ;" and he says 

 that, " in these circumstances we see a reason why so few caverns of this 

 kind have hitherto been discovered, although it is probable that they are 

 very numerous." From the fact that few, if any, bone-caverns have been 

 discovered with apertures through which animals could have passed, except 

 caverns situated in the face of precipitous cliffs, produced, according to 

 Dr. Buckland, by diluvial denudation, it seems to me certain that all bone- 

 caverns were only formed by the animal remains imbedded in the limestone 

 deposit before its consolidation, and, consequently, that the animals them- 

 selves must have originally inhabited some other dry land which may no 

 longer exist. Lastly, as almost all the fossil remains of men or animals 

 found in caves are buried in loam, which, as Dr. Buckland asserts, was 

 carried into the caves by an inundation, it is probable that the same water 

 which introduced this loam introduced the bones imbedded in it. 



I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 



Thos. D. Allen. 



Rectory, North Cerney, Cirencester, June 12, 1863. 



[How were the bones of men, mammoths, and reindeer separated and deposited only in 

 the forming fissures in a semifluid limestone ? The bones of men, mammoths, and reindeer 

 would have been commingled with the shell- fish and other marine remains in the Portland 

 rock, if they had existed at that period and were washed into the Portland Sea. Mr. Allen 

 had better honestly look at the sections, fissures, and limestones for himself, and get some 

 of the human and mammal bones out in the presence of good and able witnesses, as M. de 

 Perthes has lately done at Abbeville. It will be a hard matter for him to get the world to 

 believe in Oolitic men and mammoths, unless on better authority than ' Willis's Notes ' or a 

 stray paragraph in the ' Times.' Ossiferous fissures are not rare. They occur in a vast 

 number of places, and there is no reason to believe the infilled remains in the Portland 

 fissures are a whit more ancient than such remains are usually considered to be. Nothing 

 has yet turned up to show that man is not one of the latest-created animals, and as yet 

 not the slightest indication has been obtained in any part of the world of the existence of 

 human beings in the Jurassic age. Mr. Allen's theory of the deposition of the extinct 

 animals in caves before the caves existed is so ingenious and naive, that we leave it with- 

 out comment for the amusement of our readers, for fear our remarks might spoil the joke. 

 By the allusion to the Oreston quarries, we presume Mr. Allen wishes to infer that there 

 were men in the mountain-limestone age. Are we shortly to be treated to footprints of 

 man and works of his architecture and handicraft in the Cambrian slates ? Mr. Allen 



