DISCOVERED AT KIRKDALE, IN YORKSHIRE. 
13 
air, has been very remarkable; some that had lain uncovered in the 
cave for a long time before the introduction of the loam were in va¬ 
rious stages of decomposition; but even in these the further progress 
of decay appears to have been arrested as soon as they became 
covered with it; and in the greater number, little or no destruction 
of their form, and scarcely any of their substance, has taken place. I 
have found, on immersing fragments of these bones in an acid till 
the phosphate and carbonate of lime were removed, that nearly the 
whole of their original gelatine has been preserved. Analogous 
cases of animal remains preserved from decay by the protection of 
similar diluvial mud occur on the coast of Essex, near Walton, and 
at Lawford, near Rugby, in Warwickshire; here the bones of the 
same species of elephant, rhinoceros, and other diluvial animals occur 
in a state of freshness and perfection even exceeding that of those in 
the cave at Kirkdale; and from a similar cause, viz. their having been 
guarded from the access of atmospheric air, or the percolation of 
water, by the argillaceous matrix in which they have been, imbedded: 
whilst other bones that have lain the same length of time in diluvial 
sand or gravel, and been subject to the constant percolation of 
water, have lost their compactness and strength, and great part of 
their gelatine, and are often ready to fall to pieces on the slightest 
touch; and this where the beds of clay and gravel in question alter¬ 
nate in the same quarry, as at Lawford. 
The workmen, on first discovering the bones at Kirkdale, sup¬ 
posed them to have belonged to cattle that died by a murrain in this 
district a few years ago, and they were for some time neglected, and 
thrown on the roads with the common limestone; they were at length 
