PREFACE. 
xi 
theory, or, in other words, the Noachian deluge, was held 
to be a sufficient explanation of the sand, gravel, and clay 
containing marine and freshwater shells, and the bones of 
mammalia, which lie scattered over wide areas on the land 
and occur also in the ossiferous caverns. With this idea 
in his mind Buckland explored in 1821 the bone cave at 
Kirkdale, and recorded the general results of his examina¬ 
tion of caves and of the diluvium in Britain and on the 
Continent in the “Reliquiae Diluvianae.” While he accepted 
the general evidence as to the Noachian deluge, he fully 
recognised that the Kirkdale cave was a den of hyenas, 
and that they had dragged in the other animals found in 
it for food. This book led to the more minute study of 
bone caverns, and ultimately to the wonderful discoveries in 
the caves of this country and of the Continent, which have 
revealed to us the existence of man hunting the reindeer, 
musk-sheep, and mammoth in France, Germany, and 
Britain, and living at a time when all the animals found 
in Kirkdale could wander freely northwards and westwards 
from the Alps and Pyrenees to the coast now marked 
by the hundred-fathom line in the Atlantic. It was this 
work that led me in 1859 into the path of comparative 
osteology, and to the exploration of Wookey Hole and 
other ossiferous caverns. 
The “ Reliquiae Diluvianae ” still remains the best book 
on caves. Buckland, it must be remarked, gave up the 
diluvial theory, as he came to recognise the power of ice, 
and the truth of the uniformitarian doctrine of the opera¬ 
tion of existing causes in past times. It is not a little 
strange that it should have been revived by Prestwich, his 
