6 
ACCOUNT OF FOSSIL TEETH AND BONES 
The abundance of such caverns in the limestone of the vicinity of 
Kirkdale is evident from the fact of the engulfment of several of the 
rivers above enumerated in the course of their passage across it from 
the eastern moorlands to the vale of Pickering; and it is important 
to observe, that the elevation of the Kirkdale cave, above the bed of 
the Hodge Beck, being nearly 80 feet, excludes the possibility of our 
attributing the muddy sediment we shall find it to contain to any 
land flood or extraordinary rise of the waters of this or of any other 
river in the neighbourhood. 
It was not till the summer of 1821, that the existence of any 
animal remains, or of the cavern containing them, was suspected. 
At this time, in continuing the operations of a large quarry along 
the slope just mentioned (see Plate II. fig. 1), the workmen acci¬ 
dentally intersected the mouth of a long hole or cavern, closed 
externally with rubbish, and overgrown with grass and bushes. As 
this rubbish was removed before any competent person had examined 
many very deep perpendicular abysses are also seen therethese abysses are evidently 
vertical fissures connected with the caves. 
The extent to which apertures of the same kind are known to prevail in the compact 
limestone districts of England may be seen from a list of the principal caverns and sub¬ 
terraneous rivers in England, given from a note by Mr. Greenough at p. 253 of Cony- 
beare and Phillips’s Geology of England and Wales ; and from a still more detailed list 
given by Mr. Farey, at p. 64, and p. 292 of the 1st vol. of his Survey of Derbyshire, in 
which he enumerates twenty-eight remarkable caverns, and as many open fissures, locally 
called shake-holes, or swallow-holes, from their swallowing up the streams that cross the 
limestone districts of that country. The fissures descend from the surface to a depth 
that is very considerable, and often communicate laterally with, or enlarge themselves 
into, caverns. 
Similar cavities give origin very generally to the engulfment of rivers, examples of 
which may be seen in the limestone districts of the Mendip Hills and South Wales, of 
the west of Ireland, Carniola, and North America. 
