GEOLOGY. 349 



the bone^cave at Brixham, in Devonshire. The care has been traced along 

 three large galleries, meeting or intersecting one another at right angles. 

 Xuinerous bones of Rhinoceros tichorinus, Bos, Equus, Cervus tarandus, 

 1 a -us spelteus, and Hyaena, have been found; and several flint implements 

 have been met with in the cave-earth and gravel beneath. One in particular 

 was met with immediately beneath a fine antler of a reindeer and a bone of 

 the cave-bear, which were imbedded in the superficial stalagmite in the mid- 

 dle of the cave. 



Mr. J. AY. Flower also described a flint implement recently discovered in a 

 bed of gravel, at Saint Acheul, near Amiens, France. 



The gravel capping a slight elevation of the chalk at Saint Achenl is com- 

 posed of water-worn chalk-flints, and is about ten feet thick; above it is a 

 thin band of sand, surmounted by sandy beds (three feet six inches) and 

 brick-earth (eleven feet nine inches). In this gravel the remains of elephant, 

 horse, and deer have been found, with land and fresh-water shells of recent 

 species. From the gravel Mr. Flower dug out a flint implement, shaped like 

 a spear-head, at about eighteen inches from the face of the pit, and sixteen 

 feet from the surface of the ground. Mr. Flower, in this communication, 

 pointed out evidences to prove that this and many other similar flint imple- 

 ments obtained from the same gravel were really the result of human man- 

 ufacture, at a time previous to the deposition of the gravel in its present 

 place. 



" These interesting discoveries," says a writer in the London Athenaeum, 

 " taken in connection with the discovery of human teeth and bones asso- 

 ciated with those of the mammoth on the Swabian Alps, with the human 

 bones in the Ivostriz and other bone-caves, and with the more recent discov- 

 ery of the association of stone knives and fossil elephant bones in France, 

 seems to promise that, before long, geologists, by perseverance, may come 

 upon evidences of an earlier date for man's occupation of European ground 

 than has been usually granted. Still, however, the stone knives are of no 

 older date than the 'Pleistocene period' of geologists the beginning of 

 the present state of things around us, when the existing hills and valleys 

 had been formed, the present climates settled, and the present fauna and 

 flora established, though still combined with some representatives of the 

 past." 



On the Bone-Cavern of Torquay, England. In this connection, the follow- 

 ing notice of the cavern of " Kent's Hole," Torquay, England (celebrated 

 for its animal remains), from a recent publication by its explorer, Rev. J. 

 MacEnery, may not be uninteresting. 



The favorite entrance to this cavern is simply a cleft in the rock, shaped 

 like a reversed wedge, about seven feet wide at the bottom and five feet high. 

 When the accumulated rubbish was cleared away from the entrance, the 

 interior was found to rise rapidly, and to spread out into a spacious vault, 

 while the rock floor was polished as if by constant use. 



Ordinary tourists visit caverns for the purpose of admiring the sparry con- 

 cretions (the stalactites and stalagmites) that frequently adorn them with 

 the most singular shapes. Kent's Hole is not destitute of these natural or- 

 naments, yet does not abound in them so remarkably as some other caverns. 

 In the upper gallery, the concretions at the roof appear like clusters of cones, 

 disposed at regular intervals, like the pendants of a Gothic screen, connected 

 by a transparent curtain of stalactite. While the mere tourist would admire 

 the natural architecture, and heed nothing beyond its beauty, the geologist 



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