ON THE CAVES IN WHICH BONES OF CARNIVOROUS ANIMALS OCCUR IN GREAT QUANTITIES.
The extraordinary accumulations of fossil bones in caves and caverns in different districts, especially in those composed of limestone, have for many years engaged the attention of inquirers; and, of late, have afforded many interesting facts to the geologist and zoologist. In England, as will appear from the following details, many different fossil animals have been discovered in limestone caves; but hitherto the caves in Scotland, which will probably be found to contain interesting documents of an ancient population, have not been examined. As the subject is a curious and interesting one, we shall, in the following pages, principally from Cuvier’s great work, lay before our readers a pretty full account of the different caves, especially those that afford bones of carnivorous animals.
Numerous caves, brilliantly decorated with stalactites of every form, succeeding each other to a great depth in the interior of mountains, communicating together by openings so narrow as scarcely to allow a man to enter them crawling, and which are yet found strewed with an enormous quantity of bones of large and small animals, are without dispute among the most remarkable phenomena which the history of fossil remains could present to the contemplation of the geologist, especially when we reflect that this phenomenon recurs in a great number of places, and over a very extended space of country. These caves have been the object of research of several naturalists, some of whom have well described and figured the bones which they contain; and even before they were explored by the naturalist, they were celebrated among the common people, who, according to their custom, added many imaginary prodigies to the natural wonders which are really observed in them. The bones which they contain were long, under the name of fossil unicorn, an important article of commerce and materia medica, on account of the powerful virtues which were attributed to them; and it is probable that the desire of finding these bones contributed much to the more accurate knowledge of these caves, and even to the discovery of several of them.
The most anciently celebrated is the cave of Bauman, situated in the country of Blankenburg, which belongs to the Duke of Brunswick, to the south of the city of that name, to the east of Elbingerode, and to the north of the village of Rubeland, the nearest inhabited place, in a hill which forms one of the last declivities of the Hartz toward the east. It has been described by many authors, among whom we shall particularly mention the great Leibnitz, in his Protogæa, pl. i. p. 97, where he gives a map of it, borrowed from the Acta Eruditorum 1702, p. 305.
Its general direction is east and west, but the entrance faces the north. It is very narrow, although it is under a pretty large natural vault. The first cave is the largest. From this to the second, one must descend by another narrow passage, at first by creeping, and afterwards by a ladder. The difference of level is 30 feet. The second cave is the richest in stalactite of all forms. The passage to the third cave is at first the most difficult of all, and we have to climb with hands and feet; but it afterwards enlarges, and the stalactites of its walls are those in which the imagination of the curious has pretended to see the best characterized figures. It has two lateral dilatations, of which the map of the Acta Eruditorum makes the third and fourth caves. At its extremity, we have still to ascend, in order to arrive at the real third cave, which forms a sort of portal. Behrens says, in his Hercynia curiosa, that it cannot be reached, because it would be necessary to descend more than 60 feet; but the above mentioned map, and the description of Von der Hardt, which accompanies it, describe this third cave under the name of the Fifth, and place beyond it a narrow passage, terminated by two small grottoes. Lastly, Silberschlag, in his Geogony, adds, that one of these grottoes leads to a narrow passage, which, descending much, leads under the other caves, and terminates in a place filled with water. There are still many bones in these remote and little frequented parts. Most of those bones which are in collections from this cave, or which have been described, are of the bear genus.
A second cave, nearly as celebrated as the former, and very near, is that which is named, after the unicorn, Enihornshæle, at the foot of the chateau of Scharzfels, in a part of the Electorate of Hanover which is named the Dutchy of Grubenhagen, and nearly upon the last southern declivity of the Hartz. It has also been described by Leibnitz, as well as by M. Deluc, in his Letters to the Queen of England. The entrance is 10 feet high, and 7 broad. We descend vertically 15 feet into a sort of vestibule, the roof of which lowers to such a degree, that, at the end of 60 feet, we are obliged to creep. After a long passage, we come to two other caves, according to Leibnitz; but Behrens adds three or four, and says, that, according to the country people, we might penetrate nearly two leagues.
Bruckmann, who gives a map of this cavern (Epistol. Itin. p. 34.), represents only five caves, arranged nearly in a straight line, and connected by extremely narrow passages. The second is the richest in bones; the third, which is the most irregular, has two small lateral caves; the fifth is the smallest, and contains a fountain. Of the bones which have been taken from it, some are in the possession of M. Blumenbach and other naturalists; and others have been figured by Leibnitz and Mylius. They belong to the bear, hyena, and tiger or lion genera.
The chain of the Hartz also presents some other caves of less celebrity, although of the same nature mentioned by Behrens in his Hercynia curiosa, namely,
The cave of Hartzburg, under the castle of the same name, above Goslar to the south. We do not know why Büsching disputes its existence. It is true that Behrens cites J. D. Horstius erroneously, for having seen bones of various animals taken from it; for Horstius speaks only (Obs. Anat. dec. p. 10.) of the cave of Scharzfels.
The cave of Ufftrungen, in the county of Stollberg, to the south of the castle of that name. It is named in the country Heim-knohle, or Hiding-hole. Behrens thinks that fossil bones might be found in it.
Another cave of the same neighbourhood, is named Diebsloch, Thieves’ Hole. Skulls have been found in it, which were supposed to be human.
We shall not speak here of those caves of the Hartz in which bones have not been discovered. And even those in which they have been found, are, at the present day, almost exhausted, it being only by breaking the stalactite that any can be obtained, so much of them had been taken away for selling as medicines.
The caves of Hungary come after those of the Hartz, with reference to the remoteness of the time at which they have been known. The first notice of them is due to Paterson Hayn, (Ephem. Nat. Cur. 1672, Obs. cxxxix. and cxciv.) Bruckmann, a physician of Wolfenbüttel, afterwards described them at length. (Epistola Itineraria, 77, and Breslauer Sammlung, 1725, First Trim. p. 628.) They are situated in the county of Liptow, on the southern declivities of the Carpathian mountains. They are known in the country by the name of Dragons’ Caves, because the people of the neighbourhood attribute to those animals the bones which occur in them, and with which they have been acquainted from time immemorial; but all those which have been figured by authors belong to the Bear family, and to the species which is named the Great Cave Bear (Grand Ours des cavernes).
The caves of Germany the richest in bones are those of Franconia, of which J. F. Esper, a clergyman of the country of Bayreuth, has given a very detailed description in a work, printed in French and German, entitled, Description des Zoolithes nouvellement decouvertes, &c. Nuremberg Knorr. 1774, folio, with 14 coloured plates, and in a memoir inserted among those of the Berlin Society of Naturalists, vol. ix. 1784, p. 56. Another description was afterwards given, under the title of Objets dignes de remarque des environs de Muggendorf, by J. C. Rosenmüller, folio, with coloured views, Berlin, 1804. And more lately, M. Goldfuss, at present Professor of Natural History at Bonn, and Secretary of the Academia Naturæ Curiosorum, has made them the subject of a particular work printed in 1810 in German, under the title of Environs of Muggendorf, in which he describes them with the greatest care, as well as the surrounding country, of which he gives a very correct topographical chart. A great part of these caves is situated in a small bailiwick, named Streitberg, which was formerly a dependence upon the country of Bayreuth, but was inclosed in that of Bamberg, and now forms part of the kingdom of Bavaria. The greatest number occur in a small peninsula, formed by the river of Wiesent, which falls into the Pegnetz, and belongs to the basin of the Main.
However, the chief of all these astonishing caves, those of Gaylenreuth, are beyond the limits of this peninsula, being on the left bank of the Wiesent, to the north-west of the village from which it derives its name. The entrance is perforated in a vertical rock; it is 7½ feet high, and faces the east. The first cave turns to the right, and is upwards of 80 feet long. The unequal heights of the vault divide it into four parts; the first three are from 15 to 20 feet high, the fourth is only 4 or 5. At the bottom of this latter, on the level of the floor, there is a hole 2 feet high, which affords a passage to the second cave: it has first a direction to the south, over a length of 60 feet by 40 in breadth, and 18 in height; it then turns to the west for 70 feet, becoming lower and lower until at length the height is only 5 feet. The passage which leads to the third cave is very inconvenient, and one has to turn through various corridors: it is 30 feet across, and from 5 to 6 in height. The ground in it is kneaded with teeth and jaws. Near the entrance is a pit of from 15 to 20 feet, to which one descends by a ladder. After having descended, we come to a vault of 15 feet diameter by 30 in height; and towards the side at which the descent is made there is a cave strewed with bones. On still descending a little, a new arcade is met with, which leads to a cave 40 feet long, and a new pit of from 18 to 20 feet deep. After descending this, we reach a cavern about 40 feet high, all strewed with bones. A passage, of 5 feet by 7, leads to a grotto of 25 feet in length by 12 in breadth. Canals, 20 feet in length, conduct to another grotto of 20 feet in height. Lastly, there is another cave, 83 feet broad and 24 high, in which more bones are found than in any of the others.
The sixth cave, which is the last, has a northerly direction, so that the whole series of caves and passages nearly describes a semicircle.
A fissure in the third cave led to the discovery, in 1784, of a new cave, 15 feet long and 4 broad, in which the greatest quantities of hyena and lions’ bones were found. The aperture was much too small for these animals to have passed through it. A particular canal which ended in this small cave has afforded an incredible number of bones and large skulls entire.
In the Philosophical Transactions of 1822, pl. xxvi. there may be seen a profile of this cave, taken on the spot in 1816, by Professor Buckland, in which is to be especially remarked an enormous mass, entirely composed of bones enveloped in the stalactite, and thus forming an osseous breccia, but of quite a different nature from those which occur at Gibraltar and other places[432].
The cave of Gaylenreuth is one of those the bones of which are most completely known, by the researches which have been made or caused to be made in it for a long time back by distinguished naturalists, such as MM. Esper, de Humboldt, Ebel of Bremen, Rosenmüller, Sœmmering, Goldfuss, &c., and by the numerous and rich collections which these researches have produced. According to the examination which Cuvier has made of the principal of these collections, three-fourths of the bones found there belong to the Bear genus, and to two or three species of that genus. The others belong to the hyena, tiger, wolf, fox, glutton, and polecat, or some nearly allied species. There are also found, although in much smaller number, bones of herbivorous quadrupeds, and, in particular, deer, of which fragments are in the possession of M. Ebel. It would even appear from a passage of M. Sœmmering’s, that a parcel of bones had been got in it belonging to an elephant’s skull[433]. According to Rosenmüller, there were found in it bones of men, horses, oxen, sheep, deer, roes, mules, badgers, dogs, and foxes, but which from the researches made by him in the cave itself, and from their state of preservation, must have been deposited at periods much later than those of the bear, tigers and hyenas[434].
The small peninsula situate nearly opposite to this cave, presents several other caves, as the Schœnstein, or Beautiful Rock, which contains seven contiguous caverns. The Brunnenstein, or Fountain Rock, in which, according to Esper, there are only found bones of known species, such as badgers, dogs, foxes, hogs, and deer; but Esper had too little anatomical knowledge for his testimony to be entirely relied on with respect to this. These bones are sometimes encrusted with stalactite. It contains also the Holeberg, or Hollow Mountain, in which eight or ten caves form a series of 200 feet in length, with two entrances. Bones of the same bears as at Gaylenreuth, are found here in various lateral depressions; and there are also deer and hogs.—The Wizerloch, so named from an ancient Sclavonic deity formerly worshipped there, the most dismal cavern of the whole country, situate in its most elevated part, and in which some vertebræ have been found. It is more than 200 feet long. The Wunderhœhle, which takes its name from its discoverer, has been known since 1773: its extent is 160 feet.—Lastly, the Cave of Klaustein, consisting of four grottoes, and upwards of 200 feet deep. Bones have been found in the third grotto, and most abundantly towards its extremity. It might be supposed that the name Klaustein signified Claw-rock, and it would thus accord very well with a place where, without doubt, as at Gaylenreuth, a multitude of ungual phalanges of bears and animals of the tiger kind have been found. But M. Goldfuss asserts, that it was called Klaustein, or St Nicholas’s Rock, after a chapel of this name, which formerly stood upon it.—There are still the Geiss-knok, or Goat Cave, and a cave discovered in 1793. M. Rosenmüller found in them two human skeletons already covered with stalactite.
The country which surrounds this small peninsula has itself several caves, independently of that of Gaylenreuth, as those of Mockas, Rabenstein, and Kirch-ahorn, three villages, situate, the first to the south, and the other two to the north-east of Gaylenreuth. Bones were formerly found in the first. The last bears in the country the expressive name of Zahn-loch, or Tooth Cave; it also bears the name of Hohen-mirschfeld, a village on whose ground it is situate; and the country people have long been in the habit of seeking in it those bones, which they imagined to be medicinal. MM. Rosenmüller and Goldfuss have in fact found bear and tiger bones. There are two others in the territory of the same village, of which the one named Schneider-loch (Tailor’s Hole), is said to have furnished the vertebræ of an elephant. That of Zewig, close upon Waschenfeld, at the very edge of the Wiesent, is nearly 80 feet deep; and it is said that skeletons of men and wolves were found in it.
All these hills, containing caves in their interior, and situate so near each other, seem to form a small chain, interrupted only by brooks, and which joins the more elevated chain of the Fichtelberg, in which are the highest mountains of Franconia, and from which flow the Main, the Saale, the Eger, the Naab, and many small rivers. M. Rosenmüller, and after him, others assert, that those which are in the hills to the north of the Wiesent, contain not a single fragment of bone, while those to the south are filled with them.
In 1799, a cave, remarkable for its situation, was discovered, which connects in some measure those of the Hartz with those of Franconia. It is the Cave of Glücksbrun, in the bailiwick of Altenstein, in the territory of Meinungen, on the south-western declivity of the chain of the Thuringerwald (Blumenb. Archæol. Telluris, p. 15. Zach. Monate. Corresp. 1800, January, p. 30.) It is the same which M. Rosenmüller names Libenstein, on account of its being on the road from Altenstein to this latter, which is a bathing place. There is a description of it by M. Kocher, in the Magazin für Mineralogie, by M. C. E. A. De Hof, 1st band. heft. iv. p. 427. The limestone in which it is situate rests upon bituminous schist, and, rising much upwards, comes to rest upon primitive rocks. The limestone varies in hardness and in the nature of its fracture, and contains marine petrifactions, such as pectinites, echinites, &c.
In making a road, there was discovered an opening, from which a very cold air issued, which determined the Duke of Saxe-Meinungen to have it farther examined. A narrow passage, of twenty feet in length, was found, which led to a cave of thirty-five feet, having a breadth of from three to twelve, and a height of from six to twelve, according to the places, and terminated by a large piece of rock, which was removed. The labour of two years discovered and cleared a series of caves connected together, and of which the bottom rose and fell alternately. They terminate in a place where water flows; but various lateral fissures make it probable that there are still several caves which have not been opened, and that they perhaps form a sort of labyrinth.
The bottom and walls of this cave are furnished with the same mud as the others, but blacker. The bones were pretty numerous, and tinged with the same colour, but only two tolerably entire skulls were obtained. That of which M. Kocher gives a figure, is the species of bear named Ursus spelæus. There are also caves of this kind in Westphalia. J. Es Silberschlag, in the Mem. des Naturalistes of Berlin (Schriften, vol. vi. p. 132), describes the one called Kluter-hœhle, near the village of Oldenforde, in the county of Mark, on the edge of the Milspe and Ennepe, two streams which fall into the Ruhr, and with it into the Rhine. Its entrance is about half-way up a hill called Kluterberg, is only three feet three inches high, and faces the south. The cave itself forms a true labyrinth in the interior of the mountain.
Not far from this, in the same county, at Sundwich, two leagues from Iserlohn, is another cave, which, for about twenty-five years back, has furnished a very large quantity of bones, part of which has been carried to Berlin, and the rest has remained in the country in the hands of various individuals[435].
If we cast a glance upon a general map, it is not difficult to perceive a certain continuity in the mountains in which these singular caves occur. The Carpathians join with the mountains of Moravia and those of Bohemia called Bœhmerwald, to separate the basin of the Danube, from those of the Vistula, Oder and Elbe. The Fichtelgebirge separates the basin of the Elbe from that of the Rhine. The Thuringerwald and the Hartz continue to limit the basin of the Elbe, by separating it from that of the Weser.
These different chains have but slight intervals between them. The caves of Westphalia alone are not connected in so evident a manner with the others.
Very lately, bones have been discovered in a cavern, which extends more towards the south, and is even situate on the other or Italian side of the Alps. It is that of Adelsberg in Carniola, a place situate on the great road from Laybach to Trieste, and about half way between these two cities. The whole of this country is full of caverns and grottoes, which have given rise to numerous sinkings of the surface, thus giving a very singular appearance to the country. Several of these caverns have long been celebrated among naturalists. That of Adelsberg is generally visited by travellers, on account of its being near the highway, and because a river called the Piuka or Poike is lost there, forming a subterranean lake, and emerging again on the north side, under the name of Unz. A hole which the Chevalier de Lowengreif discovered in 1816, in one of its walls, at the height of 14 fathoms, conducted him to a series of new caves of vast extent, and of incomparable beauty, from the lustre and variety of their stalactites.
A part of these caves was, however, known, and must be, or have been accessible, by some other place, for inscriptions were found in them with dates, from 1393 to 1676, together with human bones, and entire carcases, that had been buried there. A German pamphlet was published at Trieste, in which are described all the windings of these subterranean passages, their different halls, their domes, their columns, and all the other appearances produced by their stalactites. We shall not follow the author (M. de Volpi, Director of the School of Commerce and Navigation at Trieste) through this immense labyrinth. Let it suffice to say, that this zealous naturalist asserts his having proceeded more than three leagues, almost in a straight line, and that he was only stopped by a lake which rendered it impossible to go on. It was about two leagues from the entrance that he discovered bones of animals, of which he gives figures, and which he describes under the name of Palæotheria. He had the politeness to communicate to me, says Cuvier, his drawings the year before, but it appears my reply did not reach him, for he makes no mention of it in his book.
Be this as it may, his figures clearly shewed that the bones in question belonged to the great cave-bear. In fact, several of these bones having been presented to the Congress of Laybach, Prince Metternich, whose enlightened taste for the advancement of knowledge has already been of so much service, had the goodness to address them to Cuvier, who disposed them in the Royal Cabinet, where any one may satisfy himself as to their species.
There are, without doubt, caves in many other chains, and several are known in France. Caves occur in Suabia, but no bones have been found in them; and, in general, it appears, that, before the last discoveries, and especially that which has been made in Yorkshire, none were known but those of Germany and Hungary that were rich in bones of carnivora. In truth, the rock of Fouvent, and which contains in one of its cavities bones of hyenas, and at the same time those of elephants, rhinoceroses and horses, might be considered as belonging to this order of phenomena; but as it was not explored to any depth, it cannot be certain that it is so.
The case is different with the Kirkdale Cavern. It having been visited immediately after its discovery by several well informed persons, and especially by Mr Buckland, every thing has been made known with respect to it. It is situated in the East Riding of the county of York, twenty-five miles NNE. of the city of York, and at about the same distance to the west from the sea and the town of Scarborough. The small river of Hodgebeck is lost under ground in the neighbourhood, much in the same way as the Piuka, near Adelsberg. It is placed in one of the limestone hills which form the northern boundary of the vale of Pickering, the waters of which fall into the Derwent. Mr Buckland compares the stone to that of the last strata of the Alpine limestone, such as are seen near Aigle and Meillene.
It was in the course of the year 1821, that some labourers working at a quarry, discovered by chance the opening, which was closed by rubbish, covered over with earth and turf. It is about 100 feet above the neighbouring brook. It can be entered to the distance of 150 or 200 feet, but we can only walk erect in some places, on account of the stalactites. On its sides there are seen spines of sea-urchins and other marine remains, incrusted in the mass of the rock; but it is on the bottom, and there only, that there is found the stratum of mud, of about a foot thick, stuck full of bones, as at Gaylenreuth. This mud, and the bones which it contains, are, in various places, covered or penetrated with stalactite, especially near places where the rock has lateral fissures.
The discovery having acquired much celebrity, a great number of people procured bones from it, and placed them in various public depots. Specimens have been deposited in the York Institution, that of Whitby and Bristol, the British Museum, the Museum of Oxford and Cambridge, and by Mr Young of Whitby, in the College Museum of Edinburgh; but the finest collection of the bones of Kirkdale was presented to Cuvier, and by him deposited in the Royal Cabinet in Paris. The greatest number of these bones without comparison, belong to hyenas of the same species as those of the caverns of Germany; but there are also many of other large and small animals, which Mr Buckland supposes to form twenty-one species. From the pieces which I have under my eye, says Cuvier, there indisputably occur bones of the elephant, hippopotamus, horse, an ox of the size of the common deer, rabbits, field-rats; also bones of some other carnivora, namely, of the tiger, wolf, fox, and weasel. All these bones and teeth are accumulated on the ground, broken and gnawed, and there are even seen marks of the teeth which have fractured them. There are even intermixed with them excrements which have been recognized as perfectly similar to those of the hyena[436].
The hills in which these caverns occur resemble each other in their composition: they are all of limestone, and all produce abundance of stalactites. These stalactites line the walls, narrow the passages, and assume a thousand various forms. The bones are nearly in the same state in all these caverns: detached, scattered, partly broken, but never rolled, and consequently not brought from a distance by water; a little lighter and less solid than recent bones, but still in their true animal nature, very little decomposed, containing much gelatine, and not at all petrified. A hardened, but still easily frangible or pulverisable earth, also containing animal parts, and sometimes blackish, forms their natural envelope. It is often impregnated and covered with a crust of stalactite. A covering of the same nature invests the bones in various places, penetrates their natural cavities, and sometimes attaches them to the walls of the cavern. This stalactite is often coloured reddish by the animal earth which is mixed with it. At other times its surface is stained black; but it is easy to see that these appearances are caused by modern occurrences, and have no immediate connection with the cause which brought the bones into these cavities. We even daily see the stalactite increasing and enveloping here and there groups of bones which it had formerly respected.
This mass of earth, penetrated by animal matter, indiscriminately envelopes the bones of all the species; and, if we except some found at the surface of the ground, and which had been transported there at much later periods, which may also be distinguished by their being much less decomposed, they must all have been interred in the same manner, and by the same causes. In this mass of earth there are found, confusedly mingled with the bones (at least in the cave of Gaylenreuth), pieces of a bluish marble, of which all the corners are rounded and blunted, and which appear to have been rolled. They singularly resemble those which form part of the osseous brecciæ of Gibraltar and Dalmatia.
Lastly, what further conspires to render this phenomenon very striking, is, that the most remarkable of these bones are the same in these caverns, over an extent of more than two hundred leagues. Three-fourths and upwards belong to species of bears, which are now extinct. A half, or two-thirds of the remaining fourth, belong to a species of hyena, which is equally unknown at the present day. A smaller number belong to a species of the tiger or lion kind, and to another of the wolf or dog genus; lastly, the most diminutive have belonged to various small carnivora, as the fox, the polecat, or at least species very nearly allied to them, &c.
The Kirkdale Cavern, however, forms a notable exception, inasmuch as none, or very few, bones of bears are found in it, and in its being the hyena that appears to predominate among the carnivora.
The species so common in the alluvial formations, the elephants, rhinoceroses, horses, oxen or aurochs, and tapirs, are of very rare occurrence in the caves of Germany. There are even some in which no one is said to have found them, and the only bones of herbivora mentioned are remains of deer. In this point also, however, the Kirkdale cave differs much from the others, inasmuch as it abounds almost as much in bones of large and small herbivora, as in bones of carnivora. All the great pachydermata of the alluvial formations are seen in it: the elephants, rhinoceroses and hippopotami. There are also seen in it bones of oxen, deer, and even small bones of mice and birds. But there are no bones of marine animals of any species, either at Kirkdale or in Germany. Those who have pretended that they saw bones of seals, morses, or other similar species, have been led into error by the hypothesis which they had previously adopted.
These bones of carnivora, so numerous in the caves, are rare in the great alluvial strata; the hyena alone has been seen in any quantity at Canstadt, near Aichstedt, and in some other places. There have also been found some traces of bears in Tuscany and Austria, but their relative proportion is always infinitely less than in the caves; and it is always sufficiently proved by these circumstances, that these various animals have lived together in the same countries, and have belonged to the same epoch.
Cuvier concludes, there can only be imagined three general causes which might have placed these bones in such quantity in these vast subterranean cavities. Either they are the remains of animals which inhabited these abodes, and which died peaceably there; or inundations and other violent causes have carried them into these cavities; or, lastly, they had been enveloped in rocky strata, the dissolution of which produced these caverns, and they have not been dissolved by the agent which carried off the matter of the strata.
This last cause is refuted by the fact, that the strata in which the caves occur contain no bones; and the second by the entireness of the smallest prominences of the bones, which does not permit us to think that they had been rolled; for if some bones are worn, as Mr Buckland has remarked, they are only so on one side, which would only prove that some current has passed over them, and in the deposit in which they are. We are, therefore, obliged to have recourse to the first supposition, whatever difficulties it presents on its part, and to say that these caves served as a retreat to carnivorous animals, and that these carried there, for the purpose of devouring them, the animals which formed their prey, or the parts of these animals.
Mr Buckland has observed, that the hyena bones are not less broken and splintered than those of the herbivorous animals; from which he concludes, that the hyenas had devoured the dead bodies of their own species, as those of the present day still do.
These animals attack each other during their life; for the fossil head of a hyena is preserved, which had evidently been wounded and afterwards healed[437].
This supposition is moreover confirmed by the animal nature of the earth in which these bones are found[438].
This much is certain, that the establishment of these animals in the caves has taken place at a much later epoch than that at which the great rocky strata have been formed, not only those which compose the mountains in which the caves are situated, but the strata of much newer origin. No permanent inundation has penetrated into the subterranean dens, and formed a regular rocky deposit. The mud arising from the proper decomposition of these animals, and the stalactites that have been filtered through the wall of the caves, are the only matters which cover these remains, and these stalactites increase so rapidly, that M. Goldfuss already found a layer of them covering the names of MM. Esper and Rosenmüller, whose visits did not date thirty years before his own. The rolled stones that are met with, and the marks of detrition observed on some bones, announce, at the very utmost, but passing currents.
But how have so many ferocious animals which peopled our forests been extirpated? All the reply we can make is, that they must have been destroyed at the same time, and by the same cause, as the large herbivora, which, like them, also peopled these forests, and of which no traces remain at the present day any more than of them.