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].