Cave Hunting

AVES OF GERMANY A

of Germany: Gailenreuth; Kühloch.-Of Great Britain.-The Caves of Yorkshire: Kirkdale.-Of Derbyshire: The Dream Cave.-Of North Wales, near St. Asaph.-Of South Wales, in counties of Glamorgan, Caermarthen, Pembroke.-Of Monmouth.-Of Gloucestershire.-Of Somersetshire: Uphill, Ban

istocene to Pre

itain, France, and Spain. We shall discover in the course of this and the following chapters that no such265 continuity can be made out between the pal?olithic man of the pleistocene age and any of the races now living in our quarter of the world; and we shall see that he is s

-Magnitude

this addition to the European fauna in the pleistocene age, the total absence of the domestic animals is a most important feature. The dog, goat, sheep, Celtic short-horn, and domestic swine are conspicuous by their absence: the reputed association of their remains with those of the pleistocene mammals being due, in all the cases which I have examined in France and Britain, to a confusion between distinct strata in the same cave or river-deposit, which are respectiv

e species were unknown in Bri

ut

ted

nt

i

y

s Ca

k-s

so

opot

mm

ed ma

less

dilu

la Gul

e-b

ros hem

chorh

as an

mm

ct. The Machairodus cultridens and Rhinoceros megarhinus probably disappeared in an early stage of the pleistocene. It may reasonably be inferred, from the migration and extinction of so many species

icily, and267 the pigmy elephant and gigantic dormouse of Malta, became extinct. Speaking in general terms, the wild fauna of Europe, as we have it now, dates from the beginning of the prehistoric age, and consists merely of those animals which were able to survive the changes by which their pleistocene congeners were banished or destroyed. The arrival of the domes

e excavation and fi

f sand and gravel, proved to be of pleistocene age by their fossil mammals, and by their fluviatile shells to have been deposited by rivers. They occur at various heights, forming sometimes terraces, and at others isolated patches, which were accu

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Valley-gravels at

ove the present level of the Wily; while a second, b, consisting of clayey brickearth or loam, with seams of gravel, and fluviatile shells, sweeps down from a lower point to the bottom of the valley, and passes under the river. From the deposit a, Dr. Blackmore ob

ted

i

nde

t

so

r

k-s

d b

rs

rhino

mm

mm

ed ma

a

implement along with these animals, of the same

excavated during the time that the pleistocene strata a and b were being formed, while pal?olithic man and the extinct animals were living in the neighbourhood. The position also of b below the present bottom of the valley proves that the latter then was deeper than it is now. The p

abuts directly against a cleft of inferior oolite (Fig. 75), and gradually dies down to the alluvium. In it Mr. Charles Moore discovered the remains of the musk-sheep, and the Rev. H. H.

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f Valley-gravels a

h, 1ft.; 2, Clay with flints, 4ft. 10i

ses of the rivers along the sides of which it is found date back from the prehistoric age; while their ancient courses are marked by the fluviatile deposits with the extinct mammalia standing at various levels, the higher being the older. In the section at Fisherton we have evidence that the river flowed at a lower level in the pleistocene age than in the prehistoric, and in that at Freshford that the lower portion of the valley had been excavated after the pleistocene strata had been formed. One or other of t

es implied by the pleistocene gravels and brickearths, that were deposited at various heights during the excavation of the valleys. The general surface of the valleys has undergone but little change si

e pleistocene winter in these latitudes had passed away before the prehistoric age, and the pleistocene valleys of the North Sea, St. George's Channel, the British, and Irish Channels had been de

sits in Valleys wi

with the lower strata of the other, and contain the same extinct animals. The prehistoric alluvium of the one is represented by the layer containing neolithic bronze or iron implements, as well as the same animals; while the historic strata are represented in both by the superficial accumulat

7

eral Condition of

ysical constitution. They are darker in colour, and more loosely stratified, and contain

f Germany:

ntury. They abound in all the limestone plateaux, especially in the region of Franconia, and in that of the Hartz. Among them the most interesting, perhaps, is that of Gailenreuth, explored by Esper, Rosenmüller, Goldfuss

as been more or less broken up by repeated diggings. These floors are perfectly274 horizontal, the level of that of B being considerably below that of A. They rest on an accumulation of reddish grey loam, containing pebbles, and angular limestone blocks

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of Gailenreuth

e is enveloped in earth. They belong to the lion, the cave variety of the spotted hy?na, the cave-bear, grizzly bear, mammoth, Irish elk,

ulls, such as those of the bears, would have escaped their powerful teeth. The pebbles in the loam bear testimony to the passage of a current of water. And if we suppose that the cave was subject to floods, such as those in the water-caves described in the second chapter, the scattering of the bones through the loam may be explained. This, however, could not have happened had the cave then opened on the face of a nearly vertical cliff, and the only condit

urface, and accumulated in the276 subterranean chambers which it traversed. Their abundance offers no obstacle to this view, since wild animals frequent their drinking places in

ve of

those of Zahnloch, celebrated for the abundance of fossil teeth, Mokas,

nd the entrance gradually leads into two large chambers "both of which terminate in a close round end, or cul-de-sac, at the distance of about 100 feet from the entrance. It is intersected by no fissures, and has no lateral communications connecting

r throughout, like the bones of mummies, and many of them readily crumbling under the finger into a soft dark powder resembling mummy powder, and being of the same nature with the black earth in which they are embedded. The quantity of animal matter accumulated on this floor is the most surprising, and the only thing of the kind I ever witnessed; and many hundred-I may say thousand-individuals must have contributed their remains to make up this appalling mass of the dust of death. It seems in great part to be derived from comminuted and pulverized bone; for the fleshy parts of animal bodies produce by their decomposition so small a quantity of permanent earthy residuum, that we must seek for the origin of t

rue. The absence of pebbles and silt show that water had no share in the introduction of the remains

an's Hole, belong to the same class as Gailenreuth

in Germany, and that they sought as their prey not merely the wild animals now living in that region, but the reindeer, mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, and Irish elk. Al

of Great

. Dr. Buckland visited Gailenreuth in 1816, and in 1821 applied the result of his kn

a-den at

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of Kirkdale

above, was about three feet high and six feet wide, and led into a passage from five to ten feet wide, which ran nearly horizontally into the rock, and branched off into smaller ramifications. Its general form and size may be gathered from the examination of the accompanying woodcuts,

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ns of Kirkdale

the German caves. In some places they were lying in little confused heaps, and in others, where the loam was thin, were exposed to the calcareous drip and cemented into a mass, their upper po

ividuals of all ages. The lion and the281 cave-bear, the wild boar, the hippopotamus (Fig. 79) an extinct kind of elephant (E. antiquus), and the rhinoceros named by Dr. Falconer R. hemit?chus, the reindeer, and Irish elk are a

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of Hippopotam

esented to this hy?na, he began to bite off with his molar teeth large282 fragments from its upper extremity, and swallowed them whole as fast as they were broken off. On his reaching the medullary cavity, the bone split into angular fragments, many of which he caught up greedily and swallowed entire: he went on cracking it till he had extracted all the marrow, licking out the lowest portion of it with his tongue: this done, he left untouched the lower condyle, which contains no marrow, and is very hard. The state and form of this residuary fragment are precisely like those of similar bones at Kirkdale; the marks of teeth on it are very few, as the bone usually gave off a splinter before the large conical teeth had forced a hole through it; these few, however, entirely283 resemble the impressions we find on the bones at Kirkdale; the small splinters also in form and size, and manner of fracture, are not distinguishable from the fo

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?nas-1, of Ox in Menagerie; 2,

of the bison from Kirkdale, may be gathered from a comparison of the two figured in Fig. 80, in which the teeth-marks a, b, an

the bones and jaws scattered on the floor, and the polished surfaces were uppermost, the rest of the fragments being rough. And Prof. Phillips informs me that the leg-bone of a ruminant was discovered wedged into a small fissure in the floor, with that portion which was within reach of the hy?na's teeth gnawed away,

rkshire, described in the third chap

re: the Dream-cav

ey continued their shaft downwards the sides continually closed upon them until the roof of a cave was revealed. A nearly perfect skeleton of the rhinoceros was discovered in the earth, as well as bones of the horse, reindeer, and urus. After a large quantity of the earth had been removed

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am-cave, Wirkswo

t followin

d continuatio

Swallo

ssifero

ntler o

Rhin

Lime

atural

ear Wirksworth, and of Doveholes, near Chaple-en-le-Frith, the mammoth, and a small cave in Hartle Dale

8

North Wales,

wo entrances, which were completely blocked up with red silt, containing a vast quantity of bones in very bad preservation. The bottom has not yet been reached. In one portion I found, in 1872, a deposit of comminuted bone with scarcely any mixture of loam, that rose in clouds of dust as it was disturbed. The animals belonged to the same class as those of Germany, the cave-bear, spotted hy?na, and reindeer, as well as the hippopotamus, Elephas a

e remains are embedded in a stiff clay, consisting of rearranged boulder clay, and are in the condition of waterworn pebbles. From it I have identified the brown, grizzly, and cave-bear. A further examinat

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er Jaw of Glutton

ne specimen of the lower jaw of a glutton (Fig. 82), which I have described in the "Geological Journal" (vol. xxvii. p. 406). In a fourth cave, at Gallfaenan, the bear and reindeer were discover

8

n the counties of Glam

covered in quarrying the mountain limestone in 1792, and contained the remains of the elephant, rhinoceros, ox, stag, and hy?na.

Devil's Hole, Crow Hole, Raven's Cliff, Spritsail Tor, and Long Hole, which are described by the late Dr. Falconer. The Rhinoceros hemit?chus was met with in comparative abundance, and in association with the woolly rhinoceros, mammoth, and E. antiquus. In Bosco's Den there w

the sea before they had been filled by the ossiferous débris. Most of them had probably289 been filled by streams in the same manner as Gailenreuth and Wirksworth. They abound on the c

n Pembr

ldy Island, and from the Coygan cave in an outlier of limestone, near Pendine, and has discovered flakes of flint and of a peculiar hornstone in the "tunnel cave" termed the Hoyle, underneath stalagmite, in a stratum containing bones of the bear and reindeer. With the exception of the fissure in the Blackrock Quarry none of t

island, but a precipitous hill, overlooking the broad valley now covered by the waters of the Bristol Channel, but then affording abundant pasture. The same inference may also be drawn from the vast numbers of animals found in the Gower caves, which could not have been supported by the scant herbage of the limestone hills of that district. We must, therefore, picture to ourselves a fertile plain occupying the whole of the Bristol Channel, and supporting herds of

Monmou

oceros, and reindeer. Flint flakes, however, occurred in the undisturbed strata, which prove that it was also the resort of man. Mr. Symonds believes that the sand and gravel inside were deposited by the Wye, at a time when it flowed 300 feet above its present course, or before the valley was cu

hy?nas' dens. The older mammoths would not fall an easy prey to so cowardly an animal. The cave had also been inhabited by man after the pleistocene age, for coarse pottery of t

estershire and

S. Miller obtained fragments of bones, about the year 1820, and among them Dr. Buckland notices the fossil joint of the hind-leg of a horse, the astragalus being held in natural position,292 between

the Men

it, south of the little village of Hutton, discovered a fissure in the limestone full of good ochre, which they followed to a depth of eight yards, until it led into a cavern, the floor of which was formed of ochre, with large quantities of white bones on the surface, and s

by a visit to the Museum of the Somerset Arch?ological and Natural History Society, at Taunton.293193 They belong to the same species as those already mentioned from the caves of South Wales. The fauna of the Mendip is, however, characterized by the great number of lions, and by a few fragments of the glutton. Of the forme

nes they must have been inaccessible to the bone-destroying hy?na. Their contents were introduced, as is suggested by Dr. Buckland, fro

the roof; the lower one full of the undisturbed contents, from which the bones project in the wildest confusion. This accumulation has been introduced by water, through a vertical fissure which opened on the surface. It is evident, from the very nearly perfect skulls of wolf and bear which

phill

led into a cave opening upon the line of cliffs. This latter had been inhabited within historic times, since many bones of sheep, or goat, and pieces of pottery, were met with, as well as a coin of the Emperor Julian. In this case, owing to the extraordinary accident of the fissure being blocked up by a fall of stone, the pleistocene accumulation is vertically above the historic; and had the barrier given way, Mr. Williams would undoubtedly have discovered the remains of the extinct mammalia, lying in a heap above the comparatively modern historic stratum. It seems to me very probable that

-den of W

n the following years with Messrs. Willett, Parker, and Ayshford Sanford, is worthy of a more detailed notice, because it was among the fi

g a dwelling-place to innumerable jackdaws. Out of a cave at its base, in which Dr. Buckland discovered pottery and human teeth, flows the river Axe, in a canal cut in the rock. In cutting this passage, that the water might be conveyed to a large paper-mill close by, the mouth of the hy?na-296den was intersected in 1852, and from that time up to December 1859 it was undisturbed save by rabbits and badgers, and even they did not penetrate far into the interior, or make d

ly was the cave filled with débris up to the very roof, that we were compelled to cut our way into it. Of the stones scattered irregularly through the matrix of red earth, some were angular, others water-worn; all are derived from the decomposition of the dolomitic conglomerate in which the cave is hollowed. Near the entrance, and at a depth of five feet from the roof, were three layer

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of Hy?na-den a

ed areas = bone-beds; shaded

ded our labours; and frogs' remains, cemented together by stalagmite, were abundant at the mouth. The teeth preponderated greatly over the bones, and the great bulk were those of the horse. The hy?na-teeth also were very numerous, and in all stages of growth, from the young unworn to the old tooth worn down to the very gums. Those of the mammoth had belonged to a young animal,

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f Flint Implements found in the Hy

flattened piece of chert, together with various splinters of flint, which had apparently been knocked off in the manufacture of some implement. Two rudely-fashioned bone arrow-heads were also found, which unfortunately were subsequently lost by the photographer to whom they were sent; they resembled i

own out by the workman; while the exact spot where they were excavating was watched by my colleague. The figured implemen

animal in fragments of bone, polished by their tread, as in the Kirkdale cave. It is, therefore, only reasonable to suppose that these remains of animals were brought into the cave from time to time by hy?nas, and left on the floors. That they were not introduced by water is proved by the preservation of the delicate processes and points of bone, which would certainly have been broken in transitu. Since, then, the implements, which, beyond doubt, had been fashioned by man, were301 underneath one of these old floors, it was certain that man was contemporary in the district with the hy?na and the animals on which it preyed, and the fact that they were found only on one spot implies that they were deposited by the hand of man. To suppose that a savage wou

with a deposit apparently of stalagmite: this, however, was much lighter than stalagmite, and not so good a conductor of heat; and, on analysis,302 I found that it consisted of phosphate of lime, with a little carbonate, and a very small portion of peroxide of manganese. Doubtless the surface of the stone, covered with phosphate of lime, formed part of the ancient floor of the cave, and hence was coated with album gr?cum; while the lower part, being imbedded in the earth on the floor, was not so coated. This deposit may, perhaps, explain the absence of round balls of coprolite, which, assuming that the cave at th

ar scattered confusedly through the matrix. After excavating the vertical branch as far as we dared (for the large stones in it made the task dangerous), we were compelled to leave off, having penetrated altogether only thirty-four feet from the entrance. No flint implements rewarded our search th

iation of articles of man's handiwork along with the extinct mammalia, by cleaning out

calcined, and its carbonized condition bore unmistakeable testimony that it had been burnt while the animal juices were present. There were many other bones also burnt, which indicated the place where fires had been kindled, and food cooked. As we dug our way forward we met with a third area (c), that furnished flint and chert implements under the same conditions of deposit as that which tempted us to carry on our excavations. Its relation to the old floors of hy?na-occupation is shown by the dark line

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h A of Fig. 83, showing

nts; thick lines

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rse Section thro

2 = bone-bed;

al. Sometimes an elephant's tooth suddenly came to light, at others a hy?na's jaw, or a rhinoceros' tooth, or the antler of a reindeer, or the canine of a bear. The bones were so numerous that they scarcely attracted attention. In one fragment of this breccia, now in the Brighton Museum, are a tusk and carpal of mammoth, the right ulna of the woolly rhinoceros, and an antler of reindeer. In a second, two shoulder-blades and two haunch bones of the woolly rhinoceros, with a coprolite and lower jaw of cave hy?na. As the men removed the large blocks they were brought to the mouth of the cave to be broken up by our smaller instruments. Presently the passage narrowed to about six feet, and presented the following section (Fig. 89). On the floor of the cave there was a layer of red earth two feet in thickness, and, as usual, containing a few organic remains and many stones (Fig. 89, 1). Upon this reste

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tion through B and C of F

area =

ches high and three feet wide, and gradually narrowed until at a distance of twelve feet from the bifurcation a stalactite six inches long reached the floor and formed a vertical bar, as if to forbid another ingress. When this had been explored as far as we could crawl, the larger branch (Fig. 83, D, and Fig. 91) engaged our attention, and we soon discovered a third layer of bones of the same character as the others, and in the same position, excepting that in some places it was in immediate contact with t

mains. We cleared out the space marked 1863 in the plan, and discovered a flint implement at the point marked d, in Fig. 83. M

nsisted of both used indifferently. Besides these three typical forms, which were most abundant, is a fourth, in form roughly pyramidal, with a smooth and flat base, and a cutting edge all round. Of these we found but two examples, both consisting of chert. In form they are exactly similar to several hundreds found in a British village at Stanlake, in Berkshire, and to those I discovered in a cemetery of the same age at Yarnton, near Oxford. They strongly resemble a cast I have of one found by M. Lartet in the cave of Aurignac. Were it not for this similarity, I should look upon them as cores from which flakes had been struck. The rest309 are mere splinters, irregular in form, and probably made in the manufacture of the various flint and chert implements. All

identify none of them as human. The coarse texture, the structure, and the thickness of one indicate a fragment of a long bone of the rhinoceros.197 All resemble many splinters strewn about in other par

id picture of the animal life of the time in Somerset. They belong to the followin

y?na

Lion

Bear

y Bear

Bear

f

oth

hinocero

s hemit?c

e

at Urus

n

ish El

eer

Deer

ing

us jaws and teeth of hy?na, and the marks of those teeth upon nearly every one of the specimens, show that they alone introduced the remains that were found in such abundance. And they preyed not merely upon horses, uri, and other herbivores, but upon one another (Figs. 92, 93), and they even overcame the cave-bear and lion in their full prime. Some of the bones of the larger animals, and in particular a leg-bone of a gigantic urus, have been broken short across and not bitten through-a circumstance which points towards one

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inal Section thro

area =

the remains would have312 been found in the chamber, and not in the smaller passages. Moreover, the absence of marks of transport by water, and especially of that sorting action which water as a conveying agent always manifests, renders the view of their being so introduced untenable. On the other hand, the horizontality of the layers of bone, and the presence of sand and of red earth, imply that water was an agent in re-arranging the bones and in introducing some of the contents of the cave. The only solution of the difficulty that I can hazard is the occurrence of floods from time to time, during the occupation of the hy?nas, similar to those which now take place in the caverns of the neighbourhood. A few years ago, the outlet of the Axe in the great cave was partially blocked up, and the water rose to a height of u

r watching until the strength of a disabled bear or lion ebbed away sufficiently to allow of its being overcome by their cowardly strength. Man appeared from time to time on the scene, a miserable savage armed with bow and spear, unacquainted with metals, but defended from the cold by coats of skin.198 Sometimes he took possession of the den and drove out the hy?nas;

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of Hy?na, from Hy?na

line = por

have been very severe to admit of the

Mendip Hills at a hi

the district. The great marsh now extending from Wells to the sea, and cutting off the Mendips from the fertile region to the south, was probably a rich valley at a higher level than at present, joining the westward plai

ters of a

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per and lower jaws o

the Wookey hy?na-den. The lower jaws also have lost their angle and coronoid process, and are gnawed to the pattern of the shaded portion of Fig. 92, the less succulent part bearing the teeth being rejected.315 This holds good of the jaws of all the animals so persistently, that out of more than two hundred from Wookey there was only one exception. The jaw of the glutton (Fig. 82), from Plas Heaton, is also gnawed to the same shape, and on

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ly Rhinoceros gnawed by Hy?nas;

From the invariable habit of the hy?na leaving the bones of its prey in fragments of this kind, their dens are characterized by the absence of perfect long-bones and skulls, and consequently, when these occur in a cave it is certain proof that it was not occupied by these animals. In a great many caves, however, the gnawed fragments are associated with the

s of Dev

re by far the most important in this country, since they were the first which were scientifica

of the distinguished cave-hunter Mr. Pengelly, F.R.S.,20

eston

us Dr. Buckland's researches in Kirkdale were anticipated by four years. From time to time, since that date, several other fissures and caves close by have furnished remains of rhinoceros, mammoth, hy?na, lion, and other animals. Among the bones and teeth originally sent up by Mr. Whidbey are several which were identified by Prof. Busk,201 as belongin

ains of the hy?na and rhinoceros, and the other animals more usually associated with them. They were probably filled, as in the case of Oreston, mainly by the streams which introduced the pebble

1

es at B

lia. Kent's Hole had been disturbed by repeated diggings, and the results might be viewed with suspicion. He, therefore, urged the importance of a systematic examination of this virgin cave with such effect, that it was undertaken by the Royal and Geological Societies, and a committee was appointed, comprising, amongst others, Dr. Falconer, P

on of the joints from north to south, and from east to west, communicating with the surface at

es to upwards of a foot in thickness, and containing only twenty-five bo

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Deposits in Brixha

ome were scored and marked by teeth. Associated with these, thirty-six rude flint implements were met with, of indisputable human workmanship, and of the same general order as those figured by the Rev. J. MacEnery from Kent's Hole. Among them was one lanceolate implement with rounded point and unworked butt end, considered by Mr. John Evans, F.R.

as a deposit of gravel, principally of

deposits, is given by Mr. Prestwich, in the rep

paratively numerous. As the excavation of the valley proceeded, the level of the stream was lowered and became more restricted to the valley-channel. The cave consequently became drier, and was more resorted to by predatory animals, who carried in their prey to devour, and was less frequented by man. At the same time with the periodical floods, which there is every reason to believe,322 from other investigations, were so great during the quaternary period, the cave would long continue to be subject to inundations, the muddy waters of which deposited the silt forming the cave-earth, burying progressively the bones left from season to season by succeeding generations of beasts of prey. By the repetition at distant intervals of these inundations, and by the accumulation during the intervening periods of fresh crops of bones, the bone-bearing cave-earth, B,

turbed the shingle and cave-earth deposited under former and different conditions.323 The cave, however, still continued to be the occasional resort of beasts of prey; for sparse remains of the reindeer, together with those of the bear and rhinoceros, were found in the stalagmite floor. After a time the falling in of the roof at places (and any earthqua

the true roof above, E. At the time this was formed, the cave must have been filled up to that level with débris, fragments of which are set in the inferior portion of the calcareous sheet. Subsequently, and before the present contents, A and B, were introduced, the whole of this material has been swept away, probably by an unusual flood similar to tha

ielded the remains of the reindeer, hy?na, and several other pleistocene species, and are

's H

s latidens, which has never before or since been discovered in any other cavern in Britain. His manuscripts unfortunately were not used until they passed into the hands of Mr. Vivian, of Torquay, who published an abstract in 1859. Subsequently they were published in full by Mr. Pengelly, in 1869. The discovery of the flint implements, verified by Mr. Godwin Austen in 1840, and six years later also by a committee of the Torquay N

hern and southern entrance, very nearly at the same level, "about fifty feet apart, from 180 to 190 feet above the level of mean tide, and about seventy feet above the bottom of the valley

(on Mr. Pengelly's method, see Appendix I.), w

discovered in the Victoria and Dowkerbottom caves in Yorkshire, which prove that the cave was frequented during the historic period. A barbed iron spear-head, a bronze spear-head, other bronze articles, and polished stone celts, establish326 the fact that

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mplement from Kent's

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ement from Kent's

e floor, varying in thickness f

e flint implements were met with at various depths, and consist of three distinct types: the lanceolate, Fig. 96, the oval, with edge carefully chipped for cutting, Fig. 97, and the flake (see Fig. 106). Besides these a few implements have been discovered of the same shape as those found in the gravel beds; in outline and section roughly triangular, and tapering to a point from a blunt base, which was probably intended to be held in the hand.212 Several articles of bone and antler were also met with, comprising an a

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from Kent's Hol

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ead from Kent's Ho

ve-earth. It has furnished bones of bears, and four flint implements. The cave-earth, C, and the breccia, E, seem to stand to one another in an inverse ratio as regards thickness: where the former was thin, the latter was sometimes as much as twelve

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mmer-stone (

vided into three stories or flats, that below the floor occupied with cave-earth, that between the floor and the ceiling entirely unoccupied, and that above the ceiling also without a deposit of any kind. For such a sheet of stalagmite to have been formed it is absolutely necessary for the cave to have been filled up to its level with materials of some kind, just as it is necessary for the formation of a film of ice that it should be crystallized from the surface of water. We may, therefore, infer that Kent's Hole, like Brixham, was originally filled up to the level of the ceiling (see Fig. 9

racture, which were in the same mineral state as those from the older breccia. One of these had been fashioned into a flake after its mineralization, and presented an edge chipped by use. The tooth from which330 it was

of the Machairodu

th vast quantities of bones and teeth of the mammoth, rhinoceros, Irish elk, horse, and hy?na. One of the canines is represented in Figs. 101, 102, which are taken from one of the original plates drawn for Dr. Buckland, and now in the Museum of the Torquay Natural History Society. The two incisors, Figs. 103, 104, 105, are also

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ine of Machairodus, Kent'

hy?na. In the autumn of 1873, I met with proof that the animal also lived in France in the pleiocene period. M. Lortet, the Director of the Museum of Natural History, at Lyons, called my attention to a canine, in the Palais des Beaux Arts, which coincides exactly in all its dimensions with one of those from Kent's Hole. It was found at Chagny (Sa?ne et Loire) near Dijon, along

e have unmistakeable traces of the presence of the hy?na; and since the spotted hy?na abounds in the cave, to its teeth the marks in question may probably be referred. It seems, therefore, probable that the animal inhabited Devonshire during an early stage of the pleistocene period, before the arctic invaders had taken full possession of the valley of the English Channel, and of the low grounds which now lie within the 100-fathom line off the Atlantic shore of Western France. There must necessarily have been a swinging to a

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ors of Machairodus, Kent's

ngelly proof of the animal having lived during the deposition of the later cave-earth, or in the later stage of the pleistocene. The condition of a bone, however, is a very fallacious guide to its antiquity, and although the fragments of the older contents of the cave are in a diff

and that lived in the valley of the Thames, while the gravel-beds of Crayford and Grays Thurrock were being deposited by the ancient river. The occurrence of either of these animals in a cave is exceptional, and the presence of both in caves on the edge of the great plain extending southwards from the present coastline of Devon, seems to me to imply that both were open during the early stage of th

rough the chambers and passages. It may have happened that in the physical changes which those caves have undergone, both were preserved in a fissure like that described in the Uphill cave335 (p. 294), and that subsequently they dropp

es of I

r Dungarvan, Waterford, remains of the brown bear (U. arctos) reindeer, horse, and mammoth were discovered in 1859, by Mr. Brenan.216 The firs

s to me to belong to the brown, or common species. The mammoth, so abundant in Britain, has only been disco

e the ancient physical geography, which will be treated in the next and following chapters as part of