EEPOET OX THE EXPLORATION OF BEIXHAM CAYE. 
537 
made by means of a flint or stone implement. Of course this maybe so ; but upon close 
inspection I am inclined to think that it is not an incision or scratch at all, but a mere 
indentation by some blunt edge, which has simply depressed the soft texture of the bone 
without breaking the surface. The bottom and sides, therefore, of this very trifling mark 
appear rounded, smooth, and, under a magnifying-glass, exactly like the surrounding 
surface ; but the appearance of antiquity which would thence attach to the indentation, 
were it really an incision, may, as it seems to me, be readily explained on the presump- 
tion of its being merely an accidental impression. 
Several other instances might be cited, but one or two more will suffice, to show that 
similar assemblages of bones were formed probably at the remotest periods of the history 
of the cavern. In one case between thirty and forty bones and teeth of a young Bear, 
together with a gnawed fragment of the scapula, several portions of the ribs, an 
astragalus, some metacarpal bones, a bone of the sternum, and teeth belonging to a 
mature animal, were found at a depth of 5 feet in the third bed, and at a distance of 
46 feet from the entrance of the Flint-knife Gallery, intermixed with a tooth of Felts 
spelcea and bones and teeth of Hyrena, Rhinoceros, and Reindeer. The ursine bones and 
teeth are all dark-coloured and dense, and, in fact, in precisely the same condition as those 
of the other animals. 
A second instance of the kind was afforded about 8 feet further from the entrance 
of the Gallery and at the same depth of 5 feet, where between thirty and forty bones, 
or fragments of bones, of a still younger Bear were found lying altogether, but, as 
it would seem, without mixture with those of any other animal. These bones present 
exactly the same ancient character, and they would seem to have been those of a sucking 
cub, or of one hardly beyond that stage of growth. They very closely correspond in 
every respect with those of a skeleton of a young Norwegian Bear in the collection 
of the British Museum, in which the middle permanent incisors of the upper jaw are in 
place though quite unworn, and the second and third milk-incisors still retained, together 
with the much-worn milk-canines. In the same jaw the first and third milk-molars, 
and behind these the first permanent molar, or 4 pm, is nearly protruded ; and behind 
that the first (second) molar is fully out, whilst the second or last molar is still wholly 
in germ, although its sac is very much enlarged. In the lower jaw the first and second 
incisors are fully out, whilst the third milk-incisor is still in situ, as well as the milk- 
canine and the first and second milk-molars. The point of the fourth premolar has just 
made its appearance, and behind that the first or antepenultimate molar is fully pro- 
truded, whilst the anterior half of the penultimate molar is visible above the alveolus, 
and the third molar is still wholly in germ. As the form of the ribs at this early period 
of growth appears to differ considerably from that which they subsequently assume (a 
difference which at first rendered the diagnosis of the bones very doubtful), the aid 
towards their identification rendered by this young skeleton in the British Museum has 
been invaluable. The difference in question consists in the young ribs being nearly all 
of them more or less square, with a rather deep groove on the anterior and posterior sides, 
4 c 2 
