DE RANGE : THE VALE OF CLWYD CAVES. 
7 
this remarkable cavern, in which he learned those methods of re- 
search which subsequently laid the foundation of all scientific cavern 
exploration in Britain. It was in this county, in the cave of Kirk- 
dale, in the Vale of Pickering, 25 miles north-east of York, that Dr. 
Buckland first applied the knowledge he acquired at Gailenreuth, 
and proved by the most conclusive evidence that the cave had been 
inhabited by hyaenas, who had gnawed the bones of their prey in the 
manner he had observed the modern hyaena of the Cape of Good Hope, 
gnawing bones of an ox in a menagerie. 
The Victoria Cave, near Settle, was discovered by Mr. Jackson, 
in 1837, in a limestone scar 1,450 feet above the sea, and subsequently 
explored under his superintendence, by a British Association Com- 
mittee, in 1870, 1871 and 1872. The section near the mouth was 
found to be as follows, according to Professor Boyd Dawkins" : — _ 
Ft. In. 
Post-Roman Talus ... ... 3 0 
Romano-Celtic Stratum ... ... 2 0 
Talus, with Neolithic horizon at its base 6 0 
Grey Clay ... ... 4 0 to 6 0 
The Grey Clay occupies the entrance and inside of the caves to 
an unknown depth, a shaft sunk to a depth of 25 feet near the 
entrance proved the following sections, in descending order : — 
Ft. In. 
Stiff gTey clay, with stalagmite layer ... 6 0 
Finely laminated calcareous clay ... ... 12 0 
Stiff grey clay ... ... ... ... 6 0 
A second shaft further in the caves failed to find the base of the 
clay at 12 feet, but a third shaft still further in the cave proved 4 feet 
of reddish loamy cave-earth to underlie about 5 feet of it. The 
cave-earth contains the bones and teeth of the same group of animals 
that occur at Kent's Hole, Wookey Hole, and other places, and that 
reached Europe before the commencement of the glacial episode. 
Mr. Tiddeman, F. G. S. , describes certain portions of the grey clay as 
being laminated like the boulder clays of Ingleton, and Clifton, near 
Manchester, where it was first described by the late Mr. Binney, 
* Cave Hunting, p. 87, London, 1874. 
