"The first grotto turns to the right, and is upwards of 80 feet long.
It is divided into four parts by the unequal heights of the vaulted
roof; the first three are from 15 to 20 feet high; whereas, the fourth
is only from 4 to 5. On the bottom of this part, and on a level with
the floor, there is an orifice only two feet high, which leads into
the second grotto. This runs first southward for 60 feet, being 40
wide and 18 high; it then turns to the west through a space of 70 feet,
becoming gradually lower till its altitude is only 5 feet. The passage
to the third grotto is very incommodious, winding through several
corridors. It is thirty feet wide, and only five or six high. The loam
of the floor is stuffed full of teeth and jaw-bones. Near the entrance
to it, is a gulf of 15 or 20 feet, into which visitors descend by a
ladder. After going down, they arrive at a vault 15 feet diameter by
30 feet in height; and on the side on which they descend, is a grotto
all bestrewed with bones. By going down a little further still, they
fall in with a new arcade which conducts to a grotto 40 feet long, and
a new gulf 18 or 20 feet deep. Even after this descent, another cavern
presents itself 40 feet high, quite covered with bones. A passage now
of 5 feet by 7 leads to a grotto 25 feet long and 12 wide; then alleys,
20 feet long, conduct into another cave 20 feet high; and finally,
a grand grotto expands, 83 feet in width, and 24 in height, more
copiously furnished with bones than any of the rest. The sixth and
last grotto runs in a northerly direction, so that the whole series of
caverns and corridors, describes nearly a semicircle.
"A rift in the third grotto, disclosed in 1784, a new grotto, 15 feet
long by 4 wide, where the greatest number of hyænas' and lions' bones
were found. The opening was much too narrow to have allowed these
animals to have entered by it. A peculiar tunnel which terminated in
this small grotto, afforded an incredible number of bones, and large
skulls quite entire."
It is supposed that these caves were inhabited by the fierce animals
whose bones they contain, and that the other more peaceable creatures
were dragged in by them for prey, since their bones have evidently been
gnawed and crushed as they would be by fierce and powerful carnivorous
animals.
CHAPTER V.
OF OTHER ANIMALS THAT ONCE LIVED IN ENGLAND AND ELSEWHERE.
THE ELEPHANT.
I have before mentioned to you the bones of Elephants, as occurring in
the bone caverns; they were, however, not just like the Elephants now
living in Africa and Asia. The tusks seem to have been larger, and the
head not quite so broad and blunt; the teeth were also different.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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