Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 31.djvu/335

Rh (into which it flows), the Ingleton beck in Yorkshire, and other streams do. The working of the quarry back from the river-bed exposed a fissure.

The rocks are here tilted up at an angle of about 70°; this fissure, therefore, is about parallel with the dip. It was in this fissure that the mammoth-remains referred to were found; and for some time after the discovery it remained without being further worked into. However, shortly before 1873 the rock near to it was quarried away, and more of its contents brought to light.

The fissure is one extending from the surface downwards for an unknown depth. It is about 6 feet wide, and filled with the ordinary loam, containing angular fragments of limestone. There are present also a number of quartz pebbles. To the north the Yoredale sandstones, Millstone Grit, and Coal-measures rise to a considerable height; from these the pebbles have probably been derived.

The fissure was, as mentioned above, 6 feet wide, and it appeared to me that it would narrow and close up not far from the face of the rock there exposed. A depth of 20 feet was open to view; and the bison-bones were about 17 feet below the surface, i. e. about 3 feet, as nearly as I can ascertain, above the horizon in which the mammoth-remains were.

There is, I think, no doubt that this bison, together with the mammoths, had fallen into the fissure when making for the Hamps for the purpose of drinking, just as sheep and cattle fall into similar pits now-a-days. And it seemed that a horse had shared the same fate; for some of the bones of that animal were also turned out. From what I saw I feel sure that the whole of the bones of the bison were present, and nearly in their proper relative position, which would not, of course, have been the case had the bones been washed in at various times.