March, 1910. The Irish Nahwalist. 37 



CAVE-HUNTING. 



BY K. J. USSHER, D.I,., J. P., M.R.I. A. 



Presideutial Address deli^'ered before the Dublin Naturalists' Field 



Club, iSth January, 1910. 



It will not be uecessarj^ to explain to this meeting of Irish 

 naturalists that the interest and importance of cave-hunting 

 (or cave exploration) centres not in the cavities themselves, 

 but in the investigation of the records they hold for us of ages 

 of which we have little other trace. Within the last centur}'' a 

 vast number of caves have been explored in many lands, and 

 the work has been found to repay the greatest care, and has 

 become an art in itself, perfected by the labours of many 

 3'ears of men like Pengelly ; so that these ancient storehouses 

 of information have been largely examined. In Ireland, how- 

 ever, we are behind-hand, for though our country contains such 

 vast extents of limestone with innumerable caves, systematic 

 work has only been done in five or six localities, and the 

 country at large (especially the great central plain) is almost 

 untouched by the cave-explorer. 



I would therefore bring before the Field Club, which has 

 done such varied and excellent work in many branches, this 

 special field of research of .such engrossing interest and im- 

 portance, and in which any member may help by prospecting 

 for caves, and this may lead to more exhaustive work. The 

 earth-stopper employed by a hunt-committee was my guide in 

 1878 to my first bone-cave at Bally namintra, Co. Waterford, and 

 wherever limestone is quarried the workmen ought to be en- 

 listed to look out for caves and fossils. I am not of course 

 speaking of those artificial souterrains so common in raths 

 which were constructed by the ancient Irish, nor of caves in 

 sandstone and other rocks such as are excavated by the sea. 

 It is in limestone, so soluble by water, that we find those 

 valuable cavities which may prove to be storehouses of relics 

 for the zoologist and antiquary. Every limestone district is 

 more or less pierced by .subterranean channels, through man}^ 

 of which streams still flow, while elsewhere the ancient river- 

 tunnels were long ago left high and dry when the water found 

 a lower level. In these we find the beds of sand, gravel, or 

 hardened mud deposited by streams aud floods that once flowed 

 there, and surface-earth intruded through fis.sures in the roof 



A 



