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vagant opinions. One of the earliest conjectures, after that of these 
caverns having been the dwellings of giants, dragons, and pigmies, and 
of their having been the temples in which sacrifices had been performed 
by the earliest inhabitants of these parts, was that they had been the 
retreats of robbers, and that these were the bones of those they had 
murdered. A more plausible conjecture was, that these had been the 
retreats of various carnivorous animals, and that the remains were 
of those animals which they had devoured. But even this conjecture 
possesses not the semblance of probability ; since these are found to be 
chiefly the bones of carnivorous animals themselves, and consequently 
would be the remains, not of the victims, but of the destroyers. The 
more generally received opinion has been, that these are the remains 
of animals which, on the advance of the waters of the deluge, re- 
treated hither for shelter, where they perished, and their bones have 
been preserved. The insufficiency of even this apparently more pro- 
bable conjecture appears, when we recollect that these remains are 
almost of carnivorous animals alone ; and still more so when we learn, 
as is the case, that more than three-fourths of these remains belonged 
to animals, not an individual of which is now known to exist. 
The bones in the caverns of different mountains are all found nearly 
in a similar state. They are detached, scattered, often broken, but 
never rubbed down, as if by the action of water. They are lighter 
and less solid than recent bones, but yet retain their real animal 
nature, and still contain their gelatine. They have suffered but little 
decomposition, and are not petrified. Many of them are covered 
with a coat of earth, containing the remains of animal matter ; and 
frequently they are not only covered, but impregnated and filled with 
stalactitic matter. In the earth in which many of them are imbedded, 
pieces of a bluish marble are found, with their angles rounded as if 
by bowldering, and which resemble those which help to form the 
bony breccia of Gibraltar and of Dalmatia. 
To the unremitting labours of M. Cuvier we are indebted for al- 
most every important information relative to the nature of these bones. 
