FOSSIL BE MAIN'S. 
26 .) 
gypseous grottoes, and of the great chambers (sinkwerke) 
dug in mines of fossil salt which are worked by the intro- 
duction of fresh water. The caverns of calcareous moun- 
tains are not exposed to those decompositions of the atmo- 
spheric air, unless they contain bones of quadrupeds, or the 
mould mixed with animal gluten and phosphate of lime, from 
which arise inflammable and fetid gases. 
Though we made many enquiries among the inhabitants 
of Caripe, Cumanacoa, and Cariaco, we did not learn that 
they had ever discovered in the cavern of Guacharo either 
the remains of carnivorous animals, or those bony breccias 
of herbivorous animals, which are found in the caverns of 
Germany and Hungary, and in the clefts of the calcareous 
rocks of Gibraltar. The fossil bones of the megatherium, 
of the elephant, and of the mastodon, which travellers havo 
brought from South America, have all been found in the 
light soil of the valleys and table-lands, Excepting the 
megalonyx,* a kind of sloth of the size of an ox, described 
by Mr. Jefferson, I know not a single instance of the ske- 
leton of an animal buried in a cavern of the New World. 
The extreme scarcity of this geological phenomenon will 
appear the less surprising to us, if we recollect, that in 
France, England, and Italy, there are also a great number 
of grottoes in which we have never met with any vestige 
of fossil bones. 
Although, in primitive nature, whatever relates to ideas 
of extent and mass is of no great importance, yet I may 
observe, that the cavern of Caripe is one of the most 
spacious known to exist in limestone formations. It is 
at least 900 metres or 2800 feet in length.f Owing to 
the different degrees of solubility in rocks, it is generally 
not in calcareous mountains, hut in gypseous formations, 
that we find the most extensive succession of grottoes. In 
Saxony there are some in gypsum several leagues in length ; 
* The megalonyx was found in the caverns of Green Briar, in Virginia 
at the distance of 1500 leagues from the megatherium, which resembles it 
very much, and is of the size of the rhinoceros. 
f The famous Baumannshdhle in the Hartz, according to Messrs. 
Gilbert and Ilsen, is only 578 feet in length ; the cavern of Scharzfeld 
350 ; that of Gaylenrcuth 304 ; that of Antiparos 30(7. But according to 
Saussare, the Grotto of Balrae is 1300 feet 
