BONES IN CAVERNS, WHY RARELY DISCOVERED. 97 
introduced in all other cases in the same manner; for as all these 
animals were the antediluvian inhabitants of the countries in 
which the caves occur, it is possible, that some may have retired 
into them to die, others have fallen into the fissures by accident 
and there perished, and others have been washed in by the diluvial 
waters. By some one or more of these three latter hypotheses, we 
may explain those cases in which the bones are few in number and 
not gnawed, the caverns large, and the fissures extending upwards to 
the surface; but where they bear marks of having been lacerated by 
beasts of prey, and where the cavern is small, and the number of 
bones and teeth so great, and so disproportionate to each other as in 
the cave at Kirkdale, the only adequate explanation is, that they were 
collected by the agency of wild beasts. We shall show hereafter, 
that in the case of the German caves, where the quantity of bones is 
greater than could have been supplied by ten times the number of 
carcases which the caves, if crammed to the full, could ever have 
contained at one time, they were derived from bears that lived and 
died in them during successive generations. 
Although it must appear probable from the facts I have now 
advanced, that similar bones abound generally in the caves and 
fissures of our limestone districts, we shall yet cease to wonder that 
their existence has been so long unnoticed, when we consider the 
number of accidental circumstances that must concur to make them 
objects of public attention. 1st, The existence of caverns is an acci¬ 
dental occurrence in the interior of the rock, of which the external 
surface affords no indication, when the mouth is filled with rubbish, 
and overgrown with grass, as it usually is in all places, excepting 
