DISCOVERED AT KIRKDALE, IN YORKSHIRE. 
9 
The fact already mentioned of the engulfment of the liical Beck, 
and other adjacent rivers, as they cross the limestone, showing it to 
abound with many similar cavities to those at Kirkdale, renders it 
likely that other deposits of bones may hereafter be discovered in 
this same neighbourhood; but as the mouths of these caverns are 
filled up and buried under diluvial loam and gravel, or postdiluvian 
detritus, and overgrown with grass, nothing but their casual inter¬ 
section by some artificial operations will lead to a knowledge of their 
existence; and in this circumstance, we also see a reason why so few 
caverns of this kind have hitherto been discovered, although it 
is probable that they are very numerous. 
In all these cases, the bones found in caverns are never mineral¬ 
ised, but simply in the state of grave bones more or less decayed or 
incrusted by stalagmite; and have no farther connexion with the 
rocks themselves, than that arising from the accident of having been 
Mineralogy: the following extract will suffice for my present purpose. Water, in pene¬ 
trating through limestone strata, often becomes impregnated with particles of the cal¬ 
careous carbonate of which the limestone is composed, and which on exposure to air 
it again deposits either in the form of pendulous masses that hang like icicles from the 
roof, or of stony concretions adhering to the sides of cavities, into which the water thus 
impregnated finds admission: to such deposits the term stalactite is applied. 
If the percolation of water containing calcareous particles is too rapid to allow time 
for the formation of a stalactite, the earthy matter is deposited from it after it has fallen 
from the roof upon the floor of the cavern; and in this case the deposition is called 
stalagmite : the substance deposited is the same as in the case of stalactite. Stalagmites 
are commonly, at least in the early stages of their formation, of a mamillary shape; by 
gradual accumulation they become conical; and at length form pillars, by the continual 
addition of their materials, till they meet, and become united with the stalactite that 
depends from the roof immediately above. 
The term breccia is applied to broken fragments of stone or bone reunited into a 
solid mass by a stony cement. 
c 
