PICKERING. 
the Inhabitants at 2332 5 and, by the lait cenfus, in 1821, 
thefe had increafed to -2746. The houfes are arranged 
chiefly in one long ftraggling ftreet, which offers no edi¬ 
fice worthy of notice, except the church, an ancient and 
fpacious ftruClure, adorned with a lofty fpire. There are, 
befides, meeting-lionfes appropriated to the Quakers, 
Prefbyterians, and Methodifts. The weftern extremity 
of the town, however, is rendered interefting by the re¬ 
mains of a ftrong caftle, which occupies the brow of a 
hiil overlooking the town, and commanding a delightful 
view of the Vale of Pickering. The date of the founda¬ 
tion of this fortrefs is uncertain ; but it appears from 
Domefday book to have belonged to Morcar, earl of Nor¬ 
thumberland, in the time of Edward the Confefl'or. In 
the beginning of the reign of Henry III. the cuftody of 
it was committed to William lord Dacre, high fheriff of 
the county; but this nobleman had only retained it two 
or three years, when it was beftowed by the monarch on 
his own fon, Edmund earl of Lancafter, whofe fuccefl'or, 
Thomas, forfeited it to the crown by rebellion. His de- 
fcendants, however, afterwards recovered it; and it con- 
fequently came by marriage into the pofleflion of the ce¬ 
lebrated John of Gaunt, duke of Lancafter, and king of 
Caftile. What became of it after his death is unknown ; 
but in the reign of queen Elizabeth we find it once more 
poflefled by the crown ; and in the time of the civil wars, 
in the feventeenth century, it is recorded to have flood a 
long fiege againft a party of the parliamentary forces fent 
to reduce it. 
Thornton is a large village two miles fouth-eaft from 
Pickering, in the road to Scarborough, where is the feat 
of the lord of the manor for Pickering Lath.—Aiflaby is 
two miles weft, in the road to Kirkby Moorlide, but in 
the parifh of Whitby. 
In the Vale of Pickering, about a mile from Kirkby 
Moorlide, near a village called KirJidale, (fee vol. xi. p. 
759, 60.) a cave was difcovered, in the year 1821, which 
contained “ an aflemblage of foflil teeth and bones of the 
elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, bear, tiger, hyaena, 
and fixteen other animals.” This difcovery has been the 
occafion of a very curious and elaborate paper in the 
Phil. Tranf. for 1822, Part I. by the Rev. W. Buckland, 
F. R.S. profeflbr of geology in the univerflty of Oxford. 
The cave was clofed externally with rubbifli, and 
overgrown with grafs and bulhes; and was difcovered in 
1821, by fome workmen employed in quarrying the rock. 
About thirty feet of the outer extremity have been 
removed, and the prefent entrance is a hole in the per¬ 
pendicular face of the quarry, lefs than five feet fquare, 
allowing a man to enter on his hands and knees; within, 
it expands and contracts irregularly from feven to two 
feet in breadth and height, deviating from a ftraight line, 
by feveral zigzags to the right and left; and is in length 
from 150 to 200 feet; feveral fmaller paflages branch off, 
but are obftruCled by fediment and ftala&ite. There are 
but two or three places in which it is poflible to ftand 
upright; and thefe are where the cavern is interfered by 
the fiffures, which clofe at the height of a few feet, termi¬ 
nating in the body of limeftone, and thickly lined with 
ftala&ite. Both the roof and floor, for many yards from 
the entrance, are compofed of horizontal ftrata of lime¬ 
ftone, uninterrupted by the flighted appearance of fiflure, 
fraCture, or ftony rubbifh of any kind. Not a Angle 
rolled pebble was to be found; nor had any bone or 
fragment of a bone the flighted mark of having been rolled 
by the action of water. The rocky bottom of the cavern 
is vifible only near the entrance, and its irregularities 
further in have been filled up throughout toa nearly level 
furface, by the introduction of a bed of mud, or fediment, 
covered by a cruft of ftalnClite. The average depth of 
the mud is about a foot, not a particle of which is at¬ 
tached either to the fides, or the roof, or any part of the 
fifliires, to fuggeft the idea of its having entered through 
them ; its fubltance, argillaceous and flightly-micaceous 
loam, mixed with much calcareous matter, appearing to 
S79 
have been derived partly from the dripping of the roof, 
and in part from comminuted bones. On tracing the 
ftalaftite downwards from the roof and fides, it was 
obferved to turn off at right angles, and to form acrofs 
the mud a plate or cruft, like ice on the furface of water, 
or cream on a pan of milk ; covering it entirely where the 
ftalaflite abounded on the fides, and more fcantily where 
the roof contained but little. A great portion of this 
cruft had been deftroyed by digging up the mud to extraCt 
the bones, before Mr. Buckland vifited the cavern ; but 
it was ftill found projecting partially from the fides, and 
forming, in one or two places, a continuous bridge acrofs 
the mud from one fide to the other. There was no alter¬ 
nation of mud with any repeated beds of ftalaftite; and 
in particular fpots only, where the water dripped from 
the roof, have ftalagmitic accumulations been raifed on 
the furface of the mud, fome of which were of confide- 
rable fize, but generally about as large as, and in the 
fliape of, a cow’s pap, a name which the workmen had 
applied to them. 
Mixed with the mud, or, more correftly fpeaking, im¬ 
mediately below it, were found lying immenfe quantities 
of bones, fome whole, others broken into fmall angular 
fragments and chips, and others again cemented by the 
ftalaftite, fo as to form an ofleous breccia. Thefe bones 
and fragments, with their coating of mud, covered nearly 
the whole floor of the cavern. The ftate of prefervation 
in which they were found is thus defcribed. “Theeft'eft 
of this mud in preferving the bones from decompofition 
has been very remarkable ; fome that had lain a long 
time before its introduction were in various ftages of 
decompofition ; but even in thefe, the farther progrefs of 
decay appears to have been arrefted by it; and in the 
greater number, little or no deftruftion of their form, 
and fcarcely any of their fubftances, had taken place. I 
have found, on immerfing fragments of thefe bones in an 
acid till the phofphate and carbonate of lime were remo¬ 
ved, that nearly the whole of their original gelatine has 
been preferved. Analogous cafes of the prefervative 
powers of diluvial mud occur on the coaft of Efl'ex near 
Walton, and at Lawford near Rugby in Warwicklhire. 
Here the bones of the fame fpecies of elephant, rhinoceros, 
and other diluvial animals, occur in a ftate of frefhnefs 
and freedom from decay, nearly equal to thofe in the 
cave at Kirkdale, and this from the fame caufe; viz. 
their having been protected from the accefs of atmofphe- 
ric air, or the percolation of water, by the argillaceous 
matrix in which they have been imbedded : whilft fimilar 
bones that have lain the fame length of time in diluvial 
fand, or gravel, and been fubjeft to the conftant percola¬ 
tion of water, have loft their compaftr.efs and ftrengtb, 
and great part of the gelatine, and are often ready to fall 
to pieces on the flighted touch ; and this where beds of 
clay and gravel occur alternately in the fame quarry, as 
at Lawford.” 
It may be obferved, that thefe bones (as indeed is the 
cafe with moll others found in caverns) are not mineral¬ 
ized like thofe embedded in rocky ftrata, but are fimply 
in the ftate of grave-bones, or thofe of mummies, or 
incrufted and penetrated by ftalaCtite; and that they 
have no further connexion with the rocks tbemfelves, 
than thatarifing from the accident of having been lodged 
in their cavities at periods long fubfequent to the forma¬ 
tion and confolidation of the ftrata in which thefe cavities 
occur. 
From Mr. Buckland’s examination of a vaft multitude 
of the teeth and bones difcovered in the cave at Kirkdale, 
he finds them referrible to the following twenty-two 
fpecies of animals : The hyaena, tiger, bear, wolf, fox, 
and an unknown animal the fize of a wolf; the elephant, 
rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and horfe ; the ox, and three 
fpecies of deer ; the rabbit, water-rat, and moufe ; the 
raven, pigeon, lark, and a fmall fpecies of duck, refem- 
bling the common duck. Thefe feveral animals lie has 
been able to clafs and identify with the afiifiance of Mr. 
Brookes 
