188 Explorations in the Bone Cave of Ballynamintra. 
whitish cake, covering another layer of the same substance, but in a wet state like 
fresh mortar. The latter lay directly on the crystalline stalagmite floor. ° (This 
whitish cake is of special interest, for in and upon it was found the oreatest 
assemblage in the cave of human bones and other traces of man, though it was not 
more than two feet six inches from the roof.) Still tracing the calcareous tufa 
we find, as before stated, that beyond twenty-three feet from the cave’s mouth the 
earthy accumulations nearly touched the roof, and the white cake of cale tufa 
that formed upon them became cemented to the roof to which it now adheres, 
none being here found on the stalagmite floor. From this point inwards it may 
be said to represent the second stratum among the accumulations of the inner 
cavity. Proceeding still further in, the calcareous sheet was traced to the great 
chimneys or roof holes at thirty and at forty feet from the cave’s mouth. To their 
sides it was found profusely adhering in a breccia with limestone fragments, and 
thence sloping away on the earthy accumulations towards the outer part of the 
cave, marking the course in which it had flowed. 
The grey earth must have accumulated while water charged with carbonate of 
lime occasionally flowed through the cave from within, filtering through the earth, 
and leaving white layers. 
This stratum yielded most interesting relics of man and extinct animals. The 
bones it contained were not confined to one locality, but they were frequently 
clustered together under the cave walls and in crevices of the rock. They were 
usually to be distinguished from the bones in the brown earth by being blackened 
and covered with pale dendritic marks, but most of those in the crust of cale 
tufa were straw-coloured. The greatest finds of bones were within ten feet of 
the cave’s mouth, whether inside or outside it, within which limits nearly all the 
blackened bones marked with dendritis in either stratum occurred. A large pro- 
portion of them belonged to the Irish elk. These represented at least five 
individuals, but probably more. There were numbers of fragments, but no large 
bone entire. The ends of the marrow bones were always broken off, and the shafts 
generally split lengthways. Many of the shafts show longitudinal cracks, Frag- 
ments of the antlers were found, and portion of an upper jaw, but no teeth. 
Several of the extremities and shafts of bones and antlers show indentations as if 
they had been gnawed by large carnivores, but such instances are few. The small 
bones of the limb-joints and feet were numerous. A human vertebra, a radius, 
and one or two phalanges found in the grey earth, as well as several bones of bear, 
were blackened, but among the straw-coloured bones encrusted with cale tufa 
there was an assemblage of fragmentary human remains at about sixteen feet from 
the cave’s mouth. One left radius was found here, and another left radius at the 
tenth or eleventh foot in this stratum. With the above bones in the calc tufa 
were associated remains of hare, ox, red deer, pig, a vertebra of Irish elk (very 
black, unlike the rest in colour), shells of Helix and lumps of charcoal, while near 
