In 1892 (Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer., vol. III, pp. 121–123), Professor J. M. Safford reported the discovery of some bones of a megalonyx in Bigbone Cave. They had been met with in the bat manure at a depth of about 3 feet. The parts received by Professor Safford, and which are all probably in Vanderbilt University, were the skull, 17 vertebræ (including 5 sacrals), a fragment of a rib, a right scapula, a right humerus, the two ilia, a part of the right pubis, a part of the right ischium, and a left tibia. Safford concluded that these bones formed a part of the same young animal that Harlan had described.
In 1897 (Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc., vol. XXXVI, pp. 36–70), Dr. H. C. Mercer gave a detailed account of his explorations in this cave. It is situated about a mile from the left bank of Caney Fork River, a mile above the mouth of a confluent called Dry Branch, and at an elevation of about 1,000 feet above sea-level. It is excavated in Carboniferous limestone and opens into what is known as “Beech Cove.” Thomas L. Bailey (“Resources of Tennessee,” vol. VIII, pp. 131–132) described it as being situated 3.5 miles south of Quebeck, near the head of a hollow or cove extending south from McElroy’s store. The latter is probably the locality put down on the topographic sheet of the quadrangle as Elroy. It is further said to be one branch of an extensive cave whose other branch is known as Arch Cave. Bigbone Cave is known to extend a distance of 3 miles. It appears that the cave had been exploited for saltpeter in the wars of 1776, 1812, and 1863 and immense amounts of the nitrous earth had been removed. Mercer found no bones until he had reached a small passage at a distance of 900 feet from the entrance. Here he found an epiphysis of a left humerus, 6 vertebræ, an astragalus, and a calcaneum of a sloth, evidently a young animal; and he concluded that they were probably parts of the same animal that Harlan had described many years before; also a part of a skeleton that had been found there in 1884, which is the one described by Safford. A remarkable feature of the bones of the young animal found in this cave, as noted by Harlan, Leidy, and Mercer, is the presence of some of the cartilage, some shreds of ligaments, and a part of the horny sheath of one claw.