and the open Fissure in Buncombe Parle. 
Cuvier has established, on evidence of a similar nature, the pro- 
bability of their having been spread in equal abundance over 
the Continent of Europe. But it by no means follows, from 
the certainty of the bones having been dragged by beasts of 
prey into the small cavern at Kirkdale, that those of similar ani- 
mals must have been introduced in all other cases in the same 
manner 5 for as all these animals were the antediluvian inhabi- 
tants of the countries in which the caves occur, it is possible 
that some may have retired into them to die, others have fallen 
into the fissures by accident and there perished, and others have 
been washed in by the diluvial waters. By some one or more 
of these three latter hypotheses, we may explain those cases in 
which the bones are few in number and not gnawed* the ca- 
verns large* and the fissures extending upwards to the surface ; 
but where they bear marks of having been lacerated by beasts of 
prey, and where the cavern is small, and the number of bones 
and teeth so great, and so disproportionate to each other as in 
the cave at Kirkdale, the only adequate explanation is, that 
they were collected by the agency of wild beasts. We shall 
show hereafter, that in the case of the German caves, where 
the quantity of bones is greater than could have been supplied 
by ten times the number of carcases which the caves, if cram- 
med to the full, could ever have contained at one time, they 
were derived from bears that lived and died in them during suc- 
cessive generation Si 
“ Although it must appear probable from the facts I have 
now advanced* that similar bones abound generally in the caves 
and fissures of our limestone districts* we shall yet cease to 
wonder that their existence has been so long unnoticed* when 
we consider the number of accidental circumstances that must 
concur to make them objects of public attention. The ex- 
istence of caverns is an accidental occurrence in the interior of 
the rock* of which the external 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. 2d, The presence of bones is another acci- 
dent, though probably not an uncommon one in those cavities 
which were accessible to the wild animals, either falling in, or 
entering spontaneously* or being dragged in by beasts of prey* 
