CAVES AND FISSURES AT KIRBY MOORSIDE. 
53 
face of it there are traces of a fissure connected with several small 
cavernous holes. The aperture discovered last spring is in the centre 
of this quarry, and near its floor; on removing the wall with which 
Mr. Duncombe had caused it to be closed, it was found to pass ob¬ 
liquely into the body of the hill, and to be intersected at a few feet 
from its entrance by a large fissure; this point of intersection forms, 
as at Kirkdale, the widest and most lofty part of the cavern, within 
which it diminishes into smaller vaults, which soon become impass¬ 
able : the outer part of the cave when first opened was about four 
feet high and six broad, and its entire floor covered with an uniform 
mass of loamy clay, precisely similar to that on the floor of the den 
at Kirkdale. On digging into this loam it was found to be six feet 
deep for a considerable distance inwards, and to contain no bones. 
At its bottom there was no stalagmitic undercrust dividing it from 
the limestone floor, nor any repetition or alternation of a second or 
third bed of stalagmite in any part of its substance; its surface alone 
was in many parts glazed over with an extensive sheet of it oozing 
outwards from the side walls, and sometimes entirely crossing and 
forming a bridge over the loam. Above this crust some parts of the 
roof and sides were loaded with stalactite in its usual fantastic forms; 
but there were no bones of modern animals, nor traces of loam, or 
even of dust, upon the surface of the superficial crust of stalagmite. 
In all its circumstances, as far as they went, it agreed with and con¬ 
firmed the history and chronology I have given of the cave at Kirk¬ 
dale, excepting the two accidents of its not having been inhabited as 
a den, or received any stalagmite on its floor, before the introduction 
of the diluvial loam. The absence of bones in this cave (the mud 
being present) adds to the probability that it was by the instru- 
