AN EXPLORATION OF THE BELIGAL-GE. 199 
who made the cave their home ; and it is unlikely that such fine 
matter could be deposited at arate of more than 1 foot in a thousand 
years. In the tropics, however, another agent of accumulation 
must be reckoned with. All caves in Ceylon swarm with bats; and 
their droppings even in a single year would add appreciably to the 
earth, while in a century they might, if undisturbed, perhaps amount 
to over a foot in thickness. 
On the morning of August 13 I opened a trench outside the cave 
in the sloping bank, heading at first uphill towards my second 
excavation. The soil here, being exposed to the action of rain, 
differed totally from the cave-earth from which it was derived. 
I excavated a considerable area, and found a uniform surface layer 
of black humus mixed with ashes, pottery, bones, shells, and chips 
to a depth of 2 feet. Below this we found stiff reddish-brown soil 
without ashes, but with quantities of quartz and chert chips, which 
grew ever rarer; until at a depth of 3 feet in the brown earth, or 
5 feet from the surface, all traces of human work came to an end. 
In the brown earth I found neither pottery nor shells nor bones nor 
any sign of fire. Yet it was in the soil immediately below the layer 
of ashes that I found chips of quartz and chert most abundant. 
After carrying my trench 12 feet towards the cave, and meeting 
with more boulders, I dug another at right angles to the first for 
a distance of 6 feet and found precisely similar conditions. 
The Doctors Sarasin in their *“‘ Ergebnisse naturwissenschaftlicher 
Forschungen auf Ceylon,” published in 1908, describe on page 14 
the excavation of a similar “talus”? in the Bintenna ; but they 
appear not to have found the same sharp dividing line between the 
black humus (which they do not record as containing ashes) and the 
brown earth rich in quartz fragments. It seems to me however 
that the brown deposit, which was evidently blown, kicked, or 
swept out of the cave above, must have required a lengthy period, 
perhaps some thousands of years, for its formation; that the 
underlying layer free from chips was accumulated previously to 
man’s appearance ; that the layer with chips and without ashes 
points to a period when man lived without fire ; and that only the 
uppermost layer proves his acquaintance therewith. Too much 
stress must not be laid upon the results of a single excavation ; but 
I look forward with interest to further researches. 
This concluded my labours in the cave. I explored a few hill-tops 
in the neighbourhood, found a moderate number of quartz chips, 
and noted a large outcrop of good white quartz close to the cave. 
There is a considerable deposit of hard and heavy titanic iron ore 
within a few yards of the quartz ; but I could not find that any use 
had been made of it by the cave-dwellers. 
The harvest of implements which I reaped was a modest one. 
I brought away over five hundred specimens, of which a little over 
fifty have found their way into my collection. The best were a 
