Stanley's Memoir on a Cave at Cefn in Denbigshtre, 41 



have assisted to render the passage more commodious. Beyond 

 its picturesque beauty and fantastic forms, it has, however, no 

 particular claims to attention^ except, indeed, that at various 

 thnes in exploring some lateral ramifications opening into the 

 interior parts of the perforation, human as well as animal bones, 

 together with stags' horns,, and I believe some remains of an- 

 cient weapons, have been found. That they were of consider- 

 able antiquity is not improbable, but there is nothing surprising 

 in their position. That the stag's horns at least had belonged 

 to deer coeval with man, was evident by the frequent marks of 

 filing, cutting, or sawing, apparent on the greater portion ; and 

 it will be obvious to any person visiting the place, that a more 

 eligible retreat, whether for shelter or ambuscade, in times of 

 feuds or warfare, could not have been selected, where travellers 

 or foes might have been way-laid, and their remains deposited 

 in the recesses and cliffs of so inviting a sepulchre. Indeed, if 

 it is not the accidental mark of a pick axe, a small hole through 

 a skull I saw there would sufficiently explain the cause why its 

 unfortunate owner should have laid his head for ever in so 

 strange a place. It was on returning from this lower cave, I 

 accidentally heard that the owner of the property, Edward 

 Lloyd, Esq. of Cefn, in the recent formation of some walks, by 

 cutting away projecting points of the cliff, and smoothing the 

 irregAilar surface of the ledges, had removed a quantity of soil 

 from a spacious opening in front of which his improvements 

 were carrying on ; and that in this soil^ used with the best effect 

 for manuring the meadows below, some bones had also been 

 found. From a glance at the position of this opening, and the 

 general resemblance of the cliff to those in which the bone caves 

 of llabenstein in Franconia are situated, it occurred to me, that, 

 by a closer examination of this opening, I might be fortunate 

 enough to find a counter-part of the Kirkdale cave. I accord- 

 ingly returned on the morrow, and decided the question in a 

 few minutes, by collecting, with, no other instrument than a walk- 

 ing stick, a considerable number of bones embedded in alluvial 

 soil, many of them probably of comparatively recent origin, but 

 others, particularly a portion of an os humerus, unquestionably 

 of a rhinoceros^ as decidedly antediluvian. How many valuable 

 relics of remote ages had already been scattered and lost, it is 



