<58 Account qf the Creat Cave at Gaihnreuth , in Franconia . 
increase of the stalactites, however, since that time, has rendered 
it very difficult to take out any bones, without breaking them. 
These bones belong to the white bear of the North (Ursus spe - 
locus)) though they differ, in some respects, from those of the 
same animal now living. Another chamber was discovered here 
at a still lower level, by widening an aperture, which the stalac- 
tites had nearly closed. In order to reach this cave, the party 
was obliged to creep backwards about twenty feet (along the 
passage at F in the Plate), beneath a large mass of strata. This 
brought them to another space covered with stalactites, where 
the search for bones was then carrying on. It was in spaces of 
this kind where the stalactites, when dug through, were found, 
in many places , to have been formed on sea sand *. 
Description of the Cave at Kirkdale in Yorkshire. 
The Cave of Kirkdale, situated at the lower extremity of 
the Dale of Bical Beck, is perforated in a limestone rock, refer- 
able to the Oolite formation, called the Oxford Oolite and Co- 
ral Bag. About 30 feet of the outer extremity of the cave have 
now been removed, and its present entrance is a hole in the per- 
pendicular face of the quarry, less than 5 feet square, which a 
person enters upon his hands and knees. The cave expands 
and contracts itself irregularly from 2 to 7 feet in breadth and 
height, diminishing, however, as it proceeds. It is about 15 or 
SO feet below the superincumbent field, and its principal direc- 
tion is E.S.E. It has several zig-zags to the right and left ; 
and its greatest length is from 150 to 200 feet. It branches 
into several lateral ramifications, some of which have not yet 
been explored. There are only two or three places where it is 
possible to stand upright, and these occur where the cavern is 
intersected with fissures. 
The first thing that is observed on entering the cavern (of 
which a section is given in Fig. 2. Plate II.), is a sediment of ar- 
gillaceous and slightly micaceous mud A, covering the whole of 
its bottom to the average depth of about a foot, and concealing the 
actual floor. Upon advancing some way into the cave, the roof 
* See the Phil. Trans. 1822, p. 171., and Deluc’s Geological Travels , in 1798, 
vol. i. p. 194. 
