Peter Parley's Wonders of the Earth, Sea, and Sky

CHAPTER IV.

OF GREAT CAVERNS IN ENGLAND, AND GERMANY, CONTAINING BONES OF WILD ANIMALS.

In several parts of England there are great caverns in limestone and other rocks, which contain an immense quantity of the bones of such animals as are now found only in wild countries with warm climates. One of the most celebrated of these caves, is that of Kirkdale, in Yorkshire. Of the bones which most of them contain, three-fourths and upwards belong to bears, of a sort no longer to be found in the living state. One-half, or perhaps two-thirds, of the remaining fourth, have been traced to a species of hyÆna, which is also unknown at the present day. A smaller number may be referred to a sort of tiger or lion, and to some species of the wolf or dog family. The smallest specimens are of various small flesh-eating animals, such as the fox, the polecat, and other kindred species. There are also in some of them bones of the Elephant, Rhinoceros, and Hippopotamus.

Plate III. p. 28

CAVE OF GAYLENREUTH

But the largest and most remarkable of these caves, is at Gaylenreuth, in Germany, of which the picture represents a section. You will understand this representation, if you read the following account of it by Dr. Buckland, the Professor of Geology, in the University of Oxford.

"The first grotto turns to the right, and is upwards of 80 feet long. It is divided into four parts by the unequal heights of the vaulted roof; the first three are from 15 to 20 feet high; whereas, the fourth is only from 4 to 5. On the bottom of this part, and on a level with the floor, there is an orifice only two feet high, which leads into the second grotto. This runs first southward for 60 feet, being 40 wide and 18 high; it then turns to the west through a space of 70 feet, becoming gradually lower till its altitude is only 5 feet. The passage to the third grotto is very incommodious, winding through several corridors. It is thirty feet wide, and only five or six high. The loam of the floor is stuffed full of teeth and jaw-bones. Near the entrance to it, is a gulf of 15 or 20 feet, into which visitors descend by a ladder. After going down, they arrive at a vault 15 feet diameter by 30 feet in height; and on the side on which they descend, is a grotto all bestrewed with bones. By going down a little further still, they fall in with a new arcade which conducts to a grotto 40 feet long, and a new gulf 18 or 20 feet deep. Even after this descent, another cavern presents itself 40 feet high, quite covered with bones. A passage now of 5 feet by 7 leads to a grotto 25 feet long and 12 wide; then alleys, 20 feet long, conduct into another cave 20 feet high; and finally, a grand grotto expands, 83 feet in width, and 24 in height, more copiously furnished with bones than any of the rest. The sixth and last grotto runs in a northerly direction, so that the whole series of caverns and corridors, describes nearly a semicircle.

"A rift in the third grotto, disclosed in 1784, a new grotto, 15 feet long by 4 wide, where the greatest number of hyÆnas' and lions' bones were found. The opening was much too narrow to have allowed these animals to have entered by it. A peculiar tunnel which terminated in this small grotto, afforded an incredible number of bones, and large skulls quite entire."

It is supposed that these caves were inhabited by the fierce animals whose bones they contain, and that the other more peaceable creatures were dragged in by them for prey, since their bones have evidently been gnawed and crushed as they would be by fierce and powerful carnivorous animals.

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