184 INNER CHAMBERS. BONES, PEBBLES, AND LOAM. 
find within were possibly introduced. The form and connexions 
of the cave will be best understood by referring to the drawing at 
Plate XVII. It consists principally of two large chambers, b and f> 
varying in breadth from ten to thirty feet, and in height from three to 
twenty feet: the roof is in most parts abundantly hung with stalactite; 
and in the first chamber, b, the floor is nearly covered with stalagmite, 
c, piled in irregular mamillated heaps, one of which in the centre, is 
accumulated into a large pillar uniting the roof to the floor. From b 
we descend by ladders to a second chamber, f, the floor of which also 
appears to have been once overspread with a similar stalagmitic crust: 
this, however, has been nearly destroyed by holes dug through it, in 
search of the prodigious quantities of bones that lie beneath. The cave, 
f, is connected by a low and narrow passage, m, with a smaller cavern, 
n, at the bottom of which is a nearly circular hole, k, descending like 
a well about twenty-five feet, and from three to four feet in diameter, 
into which you let yourself down, as in climbing a chimney, by sup¬ 
porting the hands, feet, and back against the opposite sides. In 
descending this hole, we find its circumference to be for the most part 
composed of a breccia of bones, pebbles, and loam, cemented by stalag¬ 
mite : on one side of it is a lateral cavity, l, which is entirely artificial, 
and is the spot from which the most perfect skulls and bones have 
been extracted in the greatest abundance; the lowest cavity, kk, is 
also entirely surrounded with the breccia above described; how much 
deeper, or how widely it may extend, has not yet been ascertained. 
The roof and the sides of the artificial cavities, k and l, having been 
dug in the breccia, are crowded with teeth and bones; but these latter 
do not occur in the roof or sides of any of the upper or natural 
