on some fossil Bones. 409 
found in caves, we should have imagined these caves were 
places of retreat for such animals, and had been so for some 
thousands of years ; and if the bones were those of carnivorous 
animals and herbivorous, we might have supposed that the 
carnivorous had brought in many animals of a smaller size 
which they caught for food ; and this, upon the first view, ap- 
pears to have been the case with those which are the subject of 
this paper ; yet when we consider that the bones are principally 
of carnivorous animals, we are confined to the supposition of 
their being only places of retreat. If they had been brought 
together by any convulsion of the earth, they would have 
been mixed with the surrounding materials of the mountains, 
which does not appear to be the case ; for although some are 
found sticking in the sides of the caves incrusted in calcareous 
matter, this seems to have arisen from their situation in the 
cave. Such accumulation would have made them coeval with 
the mountains themselves, which from the recent state of the 
bones I should very much doubt. 
The difference in the state of the bones shows that there 
was probably a succession of them for a vast series of years ; 
for if we consider the distance of time between the most per- 
fect having been deposited, which we must suppose were the 
last, and the present time, we must consider it to be many 
thousand years ; and if we calculate how long these must still 
remain to be as far decayed as some others are, it will require 
many thousand years, a sufficient time for a vast accumulation : 
from this mode of reasoning, therefore, it would appear that 
they were not brought here at once in a recent state. 
The animal earth, as it is called, at the bottom of these caves, 
is supposed to be produced by the rotting of the flesh, which is 
supposing the animals brought there with the flesh on ; but I do 
mdccxciv. 3G 
