CONTAINING POSTDILUVIAL BONES. 
55 
Park to the town of Helmsley, and on the left bank of which are the 
magnificent terraces of Rivaulx Abbey, and of the gardens at Dun- 
combe Park. The crack has probably been formed by a subsidence 
of part of the cliff towards the valley, and terminates upwards near 
its edge, in a small aperture, about twenty feet long and three or four 
feet broad, which is almost concealed and overgrown with bushes, and 
which being nearly at right angles to the edge of the cliff, lies like a 
pitfall across the path of animals that pass that way. It descends 
obliquely downwards, and presents several ledges or landing places 
and irregular lateral chambers, the floors of which are strewed over 
with loose angular fragments of limestone, fallen from the sides and 
roof, and with dislocated skeletons of animals that have from time to 
time fallen in from above and perished. One of Mr. Duncombe’s 
park-keepers had been for many years aware of the existence of 
bones in this chasm, but had never mentioned it till my second visit 
to Buncombe Park, when we examined it, descending by means of a 
rope, and found it to contain the skeletons of dogs, sheep, deer, goats, 
and hogs, lodged at various depths on the landing places I have just 
mentioned: the bones lay loose and naked on the actual spots on 
which the animals had died, and to which they had probably fallen 
when passing carelessly along the surface of the Park above; they 
were neither broken, nor buried in loam, nor incrusted with stalag¬ 
mite, as at Kirkdale, but simply stripped of their flesh; they are not 
adherent to the tongue when fractured, but retain much more animal 
matter, and are in all respects more fresh and recent, than those 
which occur at Kirkdale entombed beneath the loam. 
In a geological point of view, the occurrence of these bones, under 
the circumstances above described, is important, as illustrating the 
