The cave of Kühloch is situated opposite to the castle of Rabenstein, in the gorge of the Esbach, at about thirty feet from the bottom. Its exterior presents a lofty arch in a nearly perpendicular cliff, about thirty feet wide and twenty feet high, and the entrance gradually leads into two large chambers “both of which terminate in a close round end, or cul-de-sac, at the distance of about 100 feet from the entrance. It is intersected by no fissures, and has no lateral communications connecting it with any other caverns, except one small hole close to its mouth, and which opens also to the valley.” The first thirty feet present a steep slope towards the entrance. Dr. Buckland describes the contents of the chambers in the following words:[179]-- “It is literally true that in this single cavern (the size and proportions of which are nearly equal to those of the interior of a large church) there are hundreds of cart-loads of black animal dust entirely covering the whole floor, to a depth which must average at least six feet, and which, if we multiply this depth by the length and breadth of the cavern, will be found to exceed 5,000 cubic feet. The whole of this mass has been again and again dug over in search of teeth and bones, which it still contains abundantly, though in broken fragments. The state of these is very different from that of the bones we find in any of the other caverns, being of a black, or, more properly speaking, dark umber colour throughout, like the bones of mummies, and many of them readily crumbling under the finger into a soft dark powder resembling mummy powder, and being of the same nature with the black earth in which they are embedded. The quantity of animal matter accumulated on this floor is the most surprising, and the only thing of the kind I ever witnessed; and many hundred--I may say thousand--individuals must have contributed their remains to make up this appalling mass of the dust of death. It seems in great part to be derived from comminuted and pulverized bone; for the fleshy parts of animal bodies produce by their decomposition so small a quantity of permanent earthy residuum, that we must seek for the origin of this mass principally in decayed bones. The cave is so dry, that the black earth lies in the state of loose powder, and rises in dust under the feet; it also retains so large a proportion of its original animal matter that it is occasionally used by the peasants as an enriching manure for the adjacent meadows. I have stated that the total quantity of animal matter that lies within this cavern cannot be computed at less than 5,000 cubic feet; now allowing two cubic feet of dust and bones for each individual animal, we shall have in this single vault the remains of at least 2,500 bears, a number which may have been supplied in the space of 1,000 years by a mortality at the rate of two and a half per annum.”