CORRESPONDENCE. 



297 



Current Notes,' and of the article in the ' Times,' relating to the new for- 

 tifications in Portland, be disproved, that human and animal bones have 

 been found mingled together in fissures of the rock which do not extend 

 to the surface of the rock ? If this statement is correct, as I believe it to 

 be, it necessarily follows that the human and animal bones must have 

 been embedded in the calcareous deposit when it was soft, and conse- 

 quently before the existence of fissures in it ; and the men and animals 

 to whom the bones belonged must have previously inhabited some other 

 dry land which probably no longer exists. Again, if the assertions of Dr. 

 Buckland, in the ' Reliquiae Diluvianae,' and of Mr. Joseph, mineralogist, 

 of Plymouth, in his letter to me, are correct, that the caves at Oreston, 

 which were only discovered by working away the body of a rock in a 

 quarry, had no apertures, it necessarily follows that the animal remains 

 must have been embedded in the calcareous deposit before its consolida- 

 tion, and consequently before there were any caves in it, and therefore 

 the animals must have previously inhabited some other dry land. I think 

 it is certain, from the statement of Dr. Buckland, that all bone-caves which 

 have been discovered with apertures through which the remains of large 

 animals could have passed are situated in the face of cliffs, produced, as 

 he says, by diluvial denudation, and that all other caves have only been 

 "laid open by the accidental operations of a quarry or mine." He says, 

 " the existence of caverns is an accidental occurrence in the interior of the 

 rock, of which the exterior surface affords no indication when the mouth 

 is filled with rubbish and overgrown with grass, as it usually is in all 

 places, excepting cliffs and the face of stone-quarries ;" that is, in fact, 

 where no mouths have existed but what have been made by the formation 

 of a quarry. For instance, as stated by Dr. Buckland, the bone- caverns 

 in Yorkshire, Devon, Somerset, Derby, and Glamorganshire " were all laid 

 open, with the exception of the caves at Paviland, by the accidental ope- 

 rations of a quarry or mine." The caves at Paviland are in the front of a 

 lofty cliff, produced, according to Dr. Buckland, by diluvial denudation, and 

 there is no evidence that they ever had any other mouths than those which 

 were made by the formation of the cliff. 



Your obedient servant, 



Thos. D. Allen. 



Rectory, North Cemey, Cirencester, July 9th, 1863. 



[It is perfectly futile to argue upon such bases as Mr. Allen persists in bringing for- 

 ward. Men who, like myself, have useful duties to perform in life, cannot waste their 

 time in arguing on imaginary bases. Mr. Allen's fundamental base of argument, if not 

 absolutely false., as I and every rational man in the present state of science must believe 

 it to be, is unfounded and unproven. There is no proof whatever that the fissures do not ex- 

 tend to the surface : indeed the very good observations of Mr. Fisher distinctly show that 

 they do extend to the very surface. Nobody denies that human bones and mammalian 

 bones have been found in the fissures. So have halfpence with human and other bones 

 in caves ; but such an association would only lead to an erroneous inference if the cir- 

 cumstances of the association were not examined and explained. If this were not done, 

 we might infer that the mammoth was a contemporary of George II. We really will 

 not print any more " ifs." "We distinctly challenge Mr. Allen to prove that the fissures 

 at Portland do not extend to the surface, and, until this is done, Ave will print nothing 

 more from him on the subject. The theory of the formation of caves by the generation 

 of the gases of decomposition of animals embedded in soft mud is too absurd to attack, 

 — for the volume of gas so generated, if powerful enough to have forced open any large 

 body of earth in forming a cavern would have formed a spherical cavity or gigantic bub- 

 ble. No such gigantic bubbles of air could ever have formed long, narrow, irregular, flat 

 fissures such as those of Portland. In some of the German caves it has been calculated, 

 from the bones extracted, that they belonged to three times as many individuals as, with 



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