extraneous substances into the cavern; but the more probable inference, and the one adopted by those who have examined the facts, is, that their occurrence together is accidental, and their production referrible to distinct periods that the animals whose bones predominate, were the first tenants of the cavern: that the enormous accumulation of bones was gradually effected, during the long period in which wild beasts had uncontrolled dominion in the forests of Europe: when every hole appears to have been the lurking-place of hyænas, and every cave a bears' den; that at a subsequent period when these races had been extirpated, man found in these vacated caverns a refuge from persecution, a secure abode, or a place of sepulture: thus, we see a single cavern may exhibit the monuments of several distinct and widely-separated epochs: and we may judge with what impropriety all these phenomena were referred to the deluge. The difficulty which the general absence of human bones in these reliquæ diluvianæ, presents, was soon felt by geologists who adopted this hypothesis; and it was supposed that the circumstance could only be explained by the supposition that the world, or at least that part of it in which these animal remains are found in such abundance, was but thinly peopled at the time of the deluge: or that the antediluvian population was then confined to the Asiatic regions, "the cradle of the human race," which geologists have not yet explored.

* Mr. Weaver, with whom Dr. Buckland coincides, says, "the satisfactory solution of the general problem as far as it relates to man, is probably to be sought more particularly in the Asiatic

There appears, à priori, to be no satisfactory reason why human bones should not have been buried in common with those of animals: the indestructible ingredient, phosphate of lime, exists in them in equal abundance, and we know that in modern times human skeletons, accidentally enveloped, have undergone petrifaction, or have been preserved in their original state several thousand years. * We can only account for their absence in the diluvial relics by the supposition alluded to, that our race occupied only a limited portion of the earth's surface, when destruction overtook "all flesh wherein was the breath of life." Europe, it is clear, during the period of the occupancy of the caves by the ferocious animals, whose bones they enclose in such prodigious quantities, could not have been inhabited by man. †

regions, the cradle of the human race: and that another interesting branch of enquiry connected with it, is, whether any fossil remains of elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and hyæna, exist in the diluvium of tropical countries: and if they do, whether they agree with the the recent species of these genera, or with those extinct species, whose remains are dispersed so largely over the temperate and frigid zones of the northern hemisphere."

* "In a turbary on the estate of the Earl of Moira, in Ireland, a human body was dug up, a foot deep in gravel, covered with eleven feet of moss; the body was completely clothed, and the garments seemed all to be made of hair. Before the use of wool was known in that country, the clothing of the inhabitants was made of hair, so that it would appear that this body had been buried at that early period; yet it was fresh and unimpaired."-Dr. Rennie, Essays, p. 521.

An idea of the vast number of animals entombed in these natural cemeteries, may be formed from Dr. Buckland's account of

The correspondence of the animal remains in caves with those in the superficial beds of loam and gravel is a remarkable fact, but it does not prove that they existed at the same period, or were simultaneously destroyed; for it is evident, a much higher antiquity must be assigned to a large portion of the inhabitants of those caves, in which countless generations had lived and died, and a vast accumulation of animal ruins had been effected, anterior to the action of the diluvial torrent, which overwhelmed the surviving individuals, and covered up the whole with extraneous matter. Besides, in many cases, the caves had not only been occupied for centuries, but these last effects were produced-they were abandoned and closed up-long before the surface of the earth experienced the violent denuding effect of the

the cave of Kühloch in Franconia. He says "There are hundreds of cart-loads of black animal dust entirely covering the whole floor, to a depth which must average at least six feet, and which if we multiply the depth by the length and breadth of the cavern, will be found to exceed five thousand cubic feet. The quantity of animal matter accumulated on this floor is the most surprising and the only thing of the kind I ever witnessed; and many hundred, I may say thousand individuals, must have contributed their remains to make up this appalling mass of the dust of death. It seems in great part to be derived from comminuted and pulverised bone; for the fleshy parts of animal bodies, produce by their decomposition, so small a quantity of permanent earthy residuum, that we must seek for the origin of this mass principally in decayed bones. The cave is so dry, that the black earth lies in the state of loose powder and rises in dust under the feet; it also retains so large a proportion of its original animal matter that it is used occasionally by the peasants as an enriching manure for the adjacent meadows."-Reliquæ Diluvianæ, p. 138.

deluge. This, the remarkable position of the entrances of many of the bony caverns, especially those of Germany, seems to prove. These are very commonly in inaccessible situations in the face of precipitous rocks, such as those of the remarkable caverns of Rabenstein, Kühloch, and Schneiderloch, in the gorge of the Esbach river in Franconia, described by Dr. Buckland. In these instances the original entrances of the caverns are supposed to have been, not in the perpendicular sides of the rocks where they are now found, but on the surface of the elevated ground through which the river-gorge has been excavated. This, the wood-engraving will render more intelligible.

The entrance to the cave of Rabenstein is seen on the right, in the face of the cliff beneath the chapel (a); the river Esbach flows down the centre of the denuded dell; and the caves of Kühloch (b), and Schneiderloch (c), are midway up the sides of the opposite cliffs. Dr. Buckland very fairly infers that the high ground on each side of the gorge, was originally continuous, and that the mouths of the caverns were on the level of the country in the space now occupied by the valley, as at

Scharzfeld and other similar situations, and that at these entrances the pebbles and diluvial mud which envelope the bones were introduced: at the same time, he supposes, the upper part of the caves were cut off, and the gorge excavated but there appears some inconsistency in attributing to the same agency, effects so dissimilar as the quiet deposition of a thin stratum of mud in the caverns, and the exertion of a force so violent as to cut out a channel in the solid rocks more than a hundred feet deep; one of these caves, moreover, like that of Kirkdale, exhibits no traces of the diluvial action in its interior: the aperture, therefore, must have been previously closed. All the circumstances, indeed, justify the inference that these effects have been produced by a succession of causes operating at distinct periods; although the phenomena of osseous caverns and breccia generally, may be referred to the last transient rush of waters over the surface-the great debacle whose effects we everywhere discover.*

* Mr. Lyell, and other writers, suppose that the earth's surface underwent no great modification, at the era of the Mosaic deluge, and that the strictest interpretation of the scriptural narrative does not warrant us in expecting to find any gelogical monuments of the catastrophe. That there was no impetuous rushing of the waters, Mr. Lyell argues, the olive branch brought back by the dove, is an unequivocal proof, as it is a clear indication that the vegetation was not destroyed. His geological objections to the universality of the flood are-1st, That there are cones or minor volcanos on the flanks of Etna, at least ten thousand years' old, which have escaped the denuding force. 2nd, There are living trees, such as the Taxodium of Mexico, (one hundred and seventeen feet in circumference,) which according to De Candolle, have stood more than five thousand years. 3rd, That many alluviums are of