88 
RECENT EXUVLE. 
above the whole was an accumulation of diluvial 
clay, three feet six inches deep, containing pebbles, 
and the osseous remains. A stalagmitic crust of 
variable thickness formed an almost general co¬ 
vering to these strata and animal remains. Such 
were the appearances, and number of deposits, 
where the space was sufficient and circumstances 
favorable. 
In one direction, where the cave had communi¬ 
cation w r ith the surface by means of numerous, small, 
circular, lengthened a pertures, an alternation of thin 
beds of clay and stalagmite was observable; and, 
contained in the substance of this stalagmite, we 
discovered the bones of three or four species of mus, 
which however, we have not been able to identify 
as the remains of existing kinds. One of them is 
certainly allied to the water-rat, and another to the 
common field-mouse. Besides these, there were 
some recent exuviae found in connection with the 
diluvial clay, namely, certain snail shells, and the 
bones of a bat, both of which creatures are known 
to hybernate, and not unfrequently to experience 
death in such places. There were likewise other 
relics, of the antiquity of which we are not clearly 
satisfied, since it is the habit of very many animals 
to appropriate such cavities for dwellings, to betake 
themselves during night, during sickness, during 
winter, or as a resource when pursued, to the hol¬ 
lows and crevices of rocks ; and since, by a variety 
of causes, their bodies after death are liable to be 
found blended with such as are the genuine pro¬ 
ductions of a former epoch. 
The pebbles found in the uppermost stratum are 
certainly granitic and trappean, derived in all like¬ 
lihood from Dartmoor, or the adjoining river, which 
continually washes fragments of those substances 
from their beds, in the course of its passage from 
its source, to this place. Breccias, (or conglomerates 
