242 ON RAINS CAVE, LONGCLIFFE, DERBYSHIRE. 



thousands, of years. Now what would take place, supposing we 

 had not interfered with the floor ? Some of this debris would fall 

 directly into the cave, the less angular of its stones rolling down 

 the slope to the back. The rest would be piled up at the entrance, 

 but soon to gravitate (rain, wind, and animals aiding), some into 

 the cave behind, some over the area immediately in front. 

 Within, the slope is very steep at first, but it gradually spreads 

 more and more over the floor. Centuries pass without further 

 violent changes. The drip, drip, here and there within deposits 

 films and seams of stalagmite on the floor below. But the rocks 

 above the mouth, resting upon uncertain foundations, are always 

 liable to collapse. Moisture and wind etch out, frost wedges out, 

 their fissures and joints, only to end as before, in a fall of debris. 

 Meanwhile, ever and anon a heavy thud within tells of the fall of 

 a block from the roof or sides, loosened by similar means. Thus 

 the work has and will go on : the mouth recedes ; the roof is 

 elevated ; the floor is raised. 



It is almost needless to say that the accumulation above 

 described must have been formed vastly more rapidly than the 

 ordinary deposits of a cave, that is, those beyond the reach of an 

 external talus. In the famous Torquay Cave, Kent's Hole, a 

 superficial black mould, rarely exceeding i ft. in thickness, con- 

 tained objects covering the whole of historic time, and extending 

 back into prehistoric to the Neolithic period — a length of time 

 exceeding, perhaps, all that has been brought to light in Rains 

 Cave. But recent as the deposits of this cave are, compared with 

 the hoary antiquity of those which have been excavated at Torquay, 

 we must not underrate their age. The bedding implies intervals, 

 one at least very considerable, in the process of infilling. A con- 

 sideration of the top bed alone will sufficiently show how very 

 intermittent, and therefore slow when measured by human time, 

 this process has been. Several thin seams of stalagmite were 

 noticed in this bed : these imply intervals in which the cave floor 

 must have remained unchanged for years. Equally telling was 

 the fact that at all levels stones and bones had their upper surfaces 

 encrusted with films of this material : these show that in the rear 



