FLOOR OF FIRST CHAMBER. 
135 
chambers above the level of the stalagmitic crust that covers their 
floor: this observation, as I have before mentioned, applies equally to 
all the other caverns I have been describing, and is important on 
account of the erroneous statements and opinions which exist on this 
subject. The floor of the first chamber b has been stated to be at 
this time almost entirely covered with a crust of stalagmite ; on the 
surface of this crust is a quantity of blackish mould, mixed with ashes 
and charcoal: the latter being derived from fires that are frequently 
made to illuminate the cave; the former is vegetable mould, which 
has been brought in from the adjacent land, possibly for the purpose 
of making a path over the slippery stalagmite, as has been lately done 
at Biel’s Hole in the Hartz. Through this crust of stalagmite some 
large holes have been dug resembling that at e, and in these we see a 
bed of brown diluvial loam and pebbles, mixed with angular fragments 
of rock, and with teeth and bones; but the latter being less abundant 
here than in the deeper chambers of the cave, the floor has from this 
circumstance been for the most part left entire. I could not ascertain 
the depth of this diluvium; where I saw it, it was three or four feet, 
but the rock below was still invisible. The bones of bears, that lie 
loosely scattered over the surface of the stalagmite, and even on the 
outside of the cave’s mouth, are rejected fragments that have been 
dug out from beneath it, or from the lower cavities; and they are 
mixed with the recent bones of dogs, sheep, foxes, &c. that have en¬ 
tered in modern times by the open mouth, a. 
In the second chamber, c, the diluvium is of the same description 
as in b, but more abundantly loaded with bones; for this reason it 
has been more disturbed, and the crust remains entire only in a few 
places. Its depth appears to be irregular, and in parts extremely 
