The Caves of Castleton and Matlock.
Fig. 59.—Ossiferous Deposit at Windy Knoll.
A. Yellow loam without bones, 4 feet.
B. Yellow clay with blocks of stone and bones, 8 feet.
C. Clayey debris, 6 feet.
The same group as those from the lower red sand, middle cave-earth, and upper breccia, has recently been met with in the caves of Derbyshire, at Matlock Bath, by Mr. Robert Law,[1] and in the Peak cavern in a fissure at Windy Knoll, near Castleton. From the last Mr. Rooke Pennington[2] and myself obtained no less than 6800 specimens, irrespective of fragments thrown aside, belonging principally to the bison and reindeer, together with bears, wolves, foxes, and hares. This vast accumulation of bones, in an area not more than 25 by 18 feet, had been formed in the bottom of a swallow hole (Fig. 59), used as a drinking-place by migratory bodies of animals. It is about 1600 feet above the sea, at a point in the Pennine chain where the magnificent
- ↑ Trans. Manchester Geol. Soc. xv. p. 51.
- ↑ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond. xxxi. p. 246; xxxiii. p. 724.
the same way, left behind in the cave not earlier than the fifth or sixth century after Christ. Both it and the other bones of sheep or goat were probably involved in the clay in one of the frequent slips which took place while the work was going on, and by which similar bones were let down from the refuse-heap above while I was conducting the first part of the exploration. See reports on Victoria Cave, Brit. Ass. Reports, 1870-78.
