lower pocket was dug out first, and
with extreme care, the bones being hoisted out by means of a basket
attached to a rope. Three or four candles sufficed to give us light.
The air was heavy and very warm, and, after staying in it for two
hours, it was necessary to come to the surface to breathe. After
extracting the bones from the lower pocket, and when no more clay
remained, we successively dug out the upper ones and threw the earth
to the bottom of the well.

On the 20th of December, 1884, my excavating was finished. To-day the
Oubliettes of Gargas are obstructed with the clay that it was
impossible to carry elsewhere. The animals that I thus collected in
the well were the following: The great bear (in abundance), the little
bear (a variety of the preceding), the hyena, and the wolf. The
pockets contained nearly entire skeletons of these species. How had
the animals been able to penetrate this well? It is difficult to admit
that it was through the aperture that I have mentioned. I endeavored
to ascertain whether there was not another communication with the
Gargas grotto, and had the satisfaction of finding a fissure that
ended in the cave, and that probably was wider at the epoch at which
the place served as a lair for the bear and hyena.

Very old individuals and other adults, and very young animals, were
living in the grotto, and, being surprised, without power to save
themselves, by a sudden inundation, reached the bottom of the well
that we have described. The entire remains of these animals were
carried along by the water and deposited in the pockets in the rock.
Once buried in the argillaceous mud, the bones no longer underwent the
action of the running water, and their preservation was thence
secured.--_F. Regnault, in La Nature._

* * * * *

DEEP SHAFTS AND DEEP MINING.

A correspondent of the New York _Sun_, writing from Virginia City,
Nevada, describes the progress of the work there on the Combination
shaft of the Comstock lode, the deepest vertical shaft in America, and
the second deepest in the world. It is being sunk by the Chollar
Potosi, Hale & Norcross, and Savage mining companies; hence its name
of the Combination shaft. This shaft has now reached a perpendicular
depth of a little over 3,100 feet. There is only one deeper vertical
shaft in the world--the Adalbent shaft of the silver-lead mines of
Przibram, Bohemia, which at last accounts had reached a dept