6-2 



Cavern. Up to that time our researches had revealed, 

 perhaps, the most remarkable oollectioii of enamelled 

 jewellery which had ever been discovered in one spot, along 

 with broken bones of animals and the implements of every- 

 day life, which afforded a pointed contrast to the culture 

 implied by the workmanship of the articles of luxury. The 

 Roman coins, and the style of workmanship of the imple- 

 ments, pointed out that the cave was occupied during the 

 troublous times when the Roman Empire was being dis- 

 membered by the invading barbarians, and when Britain, 

 stripped of the Roman legions, was falling a prey either to 

 the Picts and Scots on the one hand, or to the Jutes, Angles, 

 and Saxons on the other. If we stretch the limits of the 

 occupation to the latest the}^ cannot be held to extend 

 nearer to our own times than the Northumbrian conquest 

 of Elmet (or Kingdom of Leeds and Bradford) by Eadwine, 

 in the year A.D. G16, that was preceded in 607 by the march 

 of -^thelfrith on Chester, and the great battle near that 

 Roman fort, celebrated in song for the defeat of the British 

 and the slaying of the monks of Bangor. At that time the 

 Northumbrian arms were first seen on the shores of the 

 Irish Channel, and the fragment of Roman Britain — which 

 had extended on the western part of our island, from the 

 estuary of the Severn uninterruptedly, through Derbyshire 

 and Lancashire into Cumberland — was divided, never again 

 to be united. The Roman civilization, which had up to 

 that time been maintained in that district disappeared, and 

 was replaced by the civilization which we know as English. 

 The traces therefore of Romano-Celtic ornaments and imple- 

 ments from the Victoria Cave must be assigned to the 

 period before the English conquest, before the Northumbrians 

 conquered West Yorkshire and Mid-Lancashire. 



Underneath the stratum containing the Romano-Celtic or 

 Brit- Welsh articles, at the entrance of the cave, there was 

 a thickness of about six feet of angular stones, and at the 



