ii8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



stratigrapliical order of the deposits and their characteristics could 

 be learned, all their fossils secured, and the highest possible exact- 

 ness attained. The excavations were continued through twelve 

 months, at the end of which the cave had been practically emptied. 

 Besides furnishing interesting indications relative to its physical his- 

 tory, the cave yielded sixteen hundred and twenty-one bones and 

 thirty-six flints. While most of the flints were flakes, some of which 

 possibly might not be artificial, three were fairly well made imple- 

 ments of paleolithic type; and it was therefore concluded that man 

 either frequented or at any rate sometimes entered the Brixham Cave 

 while Devonshire was inhabited by various mammals which are now 

 extinct. Previous to the execution of this work, all geological evi- 

 dence as to the antiquity of man had been received, even by Eng- 

 lish geologists of the first rank, with what Pengelly called apathy and 

 skepticism. After the work it soon became evident, Pengelly said 

 in an address to the Section of Anthropology of the British Associa- 

 tion, in 1883, that this geological apathy had been more apparent 

 than real, " In fact, geologists were found to have been not so much 

 disinclined to entertain the question of human antiquity, as to doubt 

 the trustworthiness of the evidence which had previously been offered 

 to them on the subject." The discoveries are thought to have had a 

 considerable share in disposing Mr. Prestwich to undertake the inves- 

 tigation of the remains at Amiens and Abbeville in France and 

 Hoxne in England, " which added to his own great reputation and 

 rescued M. Boucher de Perthes from undeserved neglect." Prof. 

 Boyd Dawkins says that they established beyond all doubt the exist- 

 ence of paleolithic man in the Pleistocene age, and caused the whole 

 of the scientific world to awake to the fact of the vast antiquity of 

 the human race. Of course, they aroused a theological controversy 

 which was long and bitter, and has only recently died out. Pengelly 

 had no trouble through it all. " Geologists," he said, " see no mode 

 of reconciling the Mosaic account of creation with geological science. 

 . . . Eor myself, I am satisfied that science can do nothing for the 

 salvation of the soul, and that the Bible is able, through God's grace, 

 to make us wise unto salvation." No doubts or difliculties could 

 ever undermine his faith as a Christian.. 



The evidence accumulated at Brixham suggested the propriety of 

 a re-examination of other evidences of man's antiquity, and par- 

 ticularly, in England, of those from Kent's Hole, or Cavern, at Tor- 

 quay. Tlie existence of this cave had been known from time imme- 

 morial, but the first recorded exploration of it was made in 1824 by 

 Mr. Northmore, of Cleve, looking for organic remains and an ancient 

 temple of Mithras. Mr. W. C. Trevelyan followed him, and first 

 obtained results of value to science. The Rev. J. MacEnery, a 



