ON RAINS CAVE, LONGCLIFFE, DERBYSHIRE. 233 



probably originally belonged to this sheet. There was, however, 

 a general tendency for the materials of the cave floor to be 

 arranged in irregular and ill-defined bands or drifts, sloping 

 downwards towards the back of the cave — stony here, loamy 

 there, gravelly, gritty, etc. 



By March 5th, all the excavation that has been done in the 

 anterior half of the cave was finished. In this portion very few 

 bones and objects of human handiwork were found. These were 

 most plentiful towards the middle of the cave, and at a depth that 

 increased as that part was reached, but we quite failed at this 

 stage to detect that they belonged to any special bed. These 

 objects consisted mainly of animal bones, mostly in a fragmentary 

 condition, and small fragments of charcoal and hand-made 

 pottery ; occasionally fragments of human bone, flint, and iron 

 were also found. 



By this date we also had removed the superficial soil of the 

 rear part of the right region, with similar results, except that 

 generally the "finds" were more numerous, and particularly so 

 the deeper we sank. On the roth, " however, we reached an 

 irregular seam of charcoal (its position indicated by I on the 

 Plan, and as a dark line below J on the Section), apparently the 

 site of a fire. It was thickest (about two inches) at the cave side, 

 but nowhere was it sharply defined, and it died out before the 

 datum line was reached. Associated with it were numerous 

 fragments of animal bones, some burnt, a few scraped as with flint 

 implements, and one gnawed ; potsherds, mostly in a very friable 

 condition, and all of hand-made pottery ; and many implements 

 and irregular pieces of flint. These objects considerably outspread 

 the charcoal, particularly towards the end of the cave. Most of 

 the flints from both here and elsewhere were superficially quite 

 white and opaque, doubtless by the action of the soil ; but in a 

 few instances the process was incomplete, the surface being finely 

 flecked, and very rarely indeed was a piece found quite untouched. 

 Of the eighteen or twenty pieces found in this layer, only seven 

 can be regarded as worked, the rest being mere shapeless lumps. 

 Of these, five are here illustrated full-size. The elegant 



