Dr Fleming on the Geological Deluge. &9D 
learned professor offers the following sensible observations: 
44 Animals at this day do fall continually into the few fissures 
that are still open ; and carnivorous, as well as graminivo- 
rous animals, lie in nearly entire skeletons in the open fissure at 
Duncombe Park, each in the spot on which it actually perished, 
upon the different ledges and landing places that occur in the 
course of its descent ; and from which, if a second deluge w r ere 
admitted to this fissure, it could only drift them downwards, and 
with them the loose angular fragments amidst which they now 
lie, to the lowest chambers in which the bottom of this fissure 
terminates. - ” (. Ih . 78.) The bones in caves may have been drift® 
ed in from open fissures at a high level by water, whether in the 
character of a local or extended inundation ; and the mud may 
be referred to a similar origin. But, in all this, there seems no 
ground to infer the exclusive agency of one sudden and transient 
deluge, when causes still exist, though of a more humble kind, 
adequate to produce the phenomena. 
The cave of Kirkdale does not present any appearances, war- 
ranting an explanation different from that which applies to ac- 
knowledged postdiluvian fissures and caves. The rounded ca- 
vities in the bottom of the cave, resembling, according to Mr 
Young, 44 such water- worn hollows as we see in rocks, in the beds 
of rivers, or on the shores of the ocean, - ” prove, that, at a period 
antecedent to the introduction of the bones, this was a fissure in 
the limestone traversed by a subterraneous river. This is ren- 
dered more than probable, by the numerous other fissures exist- 
ing in the same bed, into one of which, in the immediate neigh- 
bourhood, the Rieal Beck enters, and for a certain space becomes 
a subterranean river f . We have here, therefore, an agent ca- 
* The proof which is brought forward by Professor Bucldand, that the 
Kirkdale Cave was not formed or modified by the agency df water is singular- 
ly defective. The sides “ are constantly rough." Were they never smooth ? 
The limestone in which fossil shells are imbedded decays more rapidly than 
the relics it encloses, when exposed to the weather or to damp air; as the sur- 
face of every secondary limestone testifies: (Take the columns of St Paul’s as 
an example.) Nor is the proof, that the bones in the same cave could not be 
introduced by running water, more satisfactory ; “ because it is impossible 
that now, or at any past period of time, any river should ever have flowed 
there.” A river flows, at this moment, not a hundred feet distant, and its 
channel is only 38 feet lower than the cave. There are many other rivers in 
