Reliquiae diluvianae; or, observations on the organic remains contained in caves, fissures, and diluvial gravel, and on other geological phenomena, attesting the action of an universal deluge / By the Rev. William Buckland.

  • Buckland, William, 1784-1856.
Date:
1823
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reliquiae diluvianae; or, observations on the organic remains contained in caves, fissures, and diluvial gravel, and on other geological phenomena, attesting the action of an universal deluge / By the Rev. William Buckland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The abundance of such caverns in the limestone of the vicinity of Kirkdale is evident from the fact of the engulfment of several of the rivers above enumerated in the course of their passage across it from the eastern moorlands to the vale of Pickering; and it is important to observe, that the elevation of the Kirkdale cave, above the bed of the Hodge Beck, being nearly 80 feet, excludes the possibility of our attributing the muddy sediment we shall find it to contain to any land flood or extraordinary rise of the waters of this or of any other river in the neighbourhood. It was not till the summer of 1821, that the existence of any animal remains, or of the cavern containing them, was suspected. At this time, in continuing the operations of a large quarry along the slope just mentioned (see Plate II. fig. 1.), the workmen acci- dentally intersected the mouth of a long hole or cavern, closed externally with rubbish, and overgrown with grass and bushes. As this rubbish was removed before any competent person had examined many very deep perpendicular abysses are also seen therethese abysses are evidently vertical fissures connected with the caves. The extent to which apertures of the same kind are known to prevail in the compact limestone districts of England may be seen from a list of the principal caverns and sub- terraneous rivers in England, given from a note by Mr. Greenough at p. 353 of Cony- beare and Phillips’s Geology of England and Wales ; and from a still more detailed list given by Mr. Farey, at p. 64, and p. 992 of the 1st vol. of his Survey of Derbyshire, in which he enumerates twenty-eight remarkable caverns, and as many open fissures, locally called shake-holes, or swallow-holes, from their swallowing up the streams that cross the limestone districts of that country. The fissures descend from the surface to a depth that is very considerable, and often communicate laterally with, or enlarge themselves into, caverns. Similar cavities give origin very generally to the engulfment of rivers, examples of which may be seen in the limestone districts of the Mendip Hills and South Wales, of the west of Ireland, Carniola, and North America.