The large chamber now turned abruptly to the left, and we gradually worked our way into a small horizontal passage about four feet high. Here there was an interval of from three to four inches between the roof and contents, traversed by stalactites, which in some places formed a smooth undulating drapery with stony tassels, and in others tiny pillars extending down to the débris, and, as it were, propping up the roof. These pedestals (see Fig. 15) gradually expanded into round plates of stalagmite, which sometimes met and formed a continuous crust. In some places an infiltration of carbonate of lime had cemented organic remains, stones, and earth into a hard mass, which had to be broken up with gunpowder before it could be removed out of the cave. The excitement of extracting from these blocks their treasures was of the very keenest, for we could not tell what a stroke of the hammer would reveal. Sometimes an elephant’s tooth suddenly came to light, at others a hyæna’s jaw, or a rhinoceros’ tooth, or the antler of a reindeer, or the canine of a bear. The bones were so numerous that they scarcely attracted attention. In one fragment of this breccia, now in the Brighton Museum, are a tusk and carpal of mammoth, the right ulna of the woolly rhinoceros, and an antler of reindeer. In a second, two shoulder-blades and two haunch bones of the woolly rhinoceros, with a coprolite and lower jaw of cave hyæna. As the men removed the large blocks they were brought to the mouth of the cave to be broken up by our smaller instruments. Presently the passage narrowed to about six feet, and presented the following section (Fig. 89). On the floor of the cave there was a layer of red earth two feet in thickness, and, as usual, containing a few organic remains and many stones (Fig. 89, 1). Upon this rested a most remarkable accumulation of bones, and teeth, matted and compacted together, from three to four inches thick, and extending horizontally from one side of the passage to the other (Fig. 89, 2). Next came a layer of dark red earth (Fig. 89, 3), loose and friable, three to four inches thick, supporting in its surface a few rounded stalagmites, and a few stalactitic pillars, that spanned the interval of from three to four inches between it and the roof. This bone-bed was about seven feet wide and fourteen feet long, affording, therefore, a square area of ninety-eight feet (see dotted area B Fig. 83, and in Fig. 90). The enormous quantity of the remains of animals present cannot fairly be estimated even by the large number preserved, because most of the bones were as soft as wet mortar. The five hundred and fifty specimens obtained must be looked upon merely as a small fraction of the whole. [Illustration: FIG. 90.--Longitudinal Section through B and C of Fig. 83, showing bone-beds. Dotted area = bone-bed.]