174 The Rev. Mr. Buckland’s account of Fossil Teeth and 
The position of the cave is at the south and lower extremity 
of one of these dales (that of the Rical Beck), at the point 
where it falls into the vale of Pickering, at the distance of 
about a furlong from the church of Kirkdale, and near the 
brow of the left flank of the valley, close to the road. This 
flank slopes towards the river at an angle of 25 0 , and the 
height of the brow of the slope above the water may be 
about 120 feet. (See Plate XVI. fig. 1.) 
The rock perforated by the cave is referable to that portion 
of the oolite formation which, in the south of England, is 
known by the name of the Oxford oolite and coral rag : 
its organic remains are identical with those of the Hedding- 
ton quarries near Oxford, but its substance is harder and 
more compact, and more interspersed with siliceous matter, 
forming irregular concretions, beds, and nodules of chert in 
the lime- stone, and sometimes entirely penetrating its coral- 
line remains. The most compact beds of this lime-stone re- 
semble the younger alpine lime-stone of Meillierie and Aigle, 
in Switzerland, and they alternate with and pass gradually 
into those of a coarser oolitic texture ; and both varieties are 
stratified in beds from one to four feet thick. The cave is 
situated in one of the compact beds which lies between two 
others of the coarser oolitic variety ; the latter vary in colour 
from light yellow to blue ; the compact beds are of a dark 
grey passing to black, are extremely fetid, and full of corals 
and spines of the echinus cidaris. The compact portions of 
this oolite partake of the property common to compact lime- 
stones of all ages and formations, of being perforated by 
irregular holes and caverns intersecting them in all direc- 
tions ; the cause of these cavities has never been satisfactorily 
