Page:Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man.djvu/117

Rh valley were visible before the breccia and earthy matter which blocked them up were removed during the late exploration. According to a ground-plan drawn up by Professor Ramsay, it appears that some of the passages which run nearly north and south are fissures connected with the vertical dislocation of the rocks, while another set, running nearly east and west, are tunnels, which have the appearance of having been to a great extent hollowed out by the action of running water. The central or main entrance, leading to what is called the 'reindeer gallery,' because a perfect antler of that animal was found sticking in the stalagmitic floor, is ninety-five feet above the level of the sea, being also about sixty above the bottom of the adjoining valley. The united length of the five galleries which were cleared out amounted to several hundred feet. Their width never exceeded eight feet. They were sometimes filled up to the roof with gravel, bones, and mud, but occasionally there was a considerable space between the roof and floor. The latter, in the case of the fissure-caves, was covered with stalagmite, but in the tunnels it was usually free from any such incrustation. The following was the general succession of the deposits forming the contents of the underground passages and channels:— 1st. At the top, a layer of stalagmite varying in thickness from one to fifteen inches, which sometimes contained bones, such as the reindeer's horn, already mentioned, and an entire humerus of the cave-bear.

2ndly. Next below, loam or bone-earth, of an ochreous red colour, from one foot to fifteen feet in thickness.

3rdly. At the bottom of all, gravel with many rounded pebbles in it, probed in some places to the depth of twenty feet without its being pierced through, and as it was barren of fossils, left for the most part unremoved.

The mammalia obtained from the bone-earth consisted of