74 
BONES AT ORESTON. 
in mud in the lowest recesses of the cave, and probably whilst it lay 
exposed in some upper cavity of the rock. The weasels’ teeth also 
must have made their impressions on the bones of the wolf and 
horse before they were buried in diluvial mud, and probably whilst 
these dead animals lay in the same situation with the tibia of the ox. 
The bones when half dry, on being thrown out of a basket on the 
floor, had the smell of a charnel-house, or newly opened grave. On 
examining the spot where they lay yet undisturbed in the mud of 
the cave, we found some of them decomposed, and crumbling under 
the touch into a blackish powder, and all extremely tender and fran¬ 
gible, and of a dark brown colour whilst wet; but on drying they 
acquired a greater degree of firmness and a whiter colour. They 
retain less of their animal gelatin than the bones at Kirkdale, and 
when dry they ring if a blow be given to them, and are absorbent to 
the tongue. On some of them there are marks of extensive disease. 
Mr. Clift has discovered in two of these bones from Oreston (the 
metatarsus and metacarpus of an ox) extensive enlargement by 
ossific inflammation, arising probably from a kick or blow; and also 
cavities and swellings produced by abscesses in both sides of the under 
jaw of a wolf. Professor Soemmering also has in his collection the 
head of an hyaena from the cave of Gailenreuth, from which part of the 
nose, with the canine and incisor teeth, had been entirely torn away, 
and the elevated ridge formed by the parietal crest and frontal 
suture dreadfully lacerated by the fangs of a bear, or tiger, or perhaps 
another hyaena and the individual had survived until the injuries had 
been considerably, and, as far as was possible, repaired. A drawing 
of this head is given in the 4th vol. of the 2d edition of Cuvier’s 
