32 ON RAINS CAVE, LONGCLIFFE, DERBYSHIRE. 



Professor Boyd Dawkins, with the result that, early in last August, Mr. 

 Arthur Cox, Rev. Dr. Cox, and Mr. Albert Hartshorne met the Pro- 

 fessor and made a preliminary investigation of the bone heap and cave. 



Mr. Boyd Dawkins at once pronounced the remains to be of the 

 Prehistoric age. He soon identified the bones of a considerable 

 variety of mammalia. The principal ones were as follows : — the 

 great urus ; the small Celtic short-horned ox {Bos loiigifrons) ; the 

 horse ; the horned sheep ; the goat ; the long-legged sheep, now 

 only found in the Hebrides ; the red deer ; the roe deer ; the hog ; 

 the dog ; and the rabbit. The skulls of a badger and of a wild cat 

 were also identified, and probably pertained to animals that had 

 found admission to the cave long after man had ceased to inhabit it. 

 A variety of human bones and other proofs of the occupation of man, 

 such as charcoal, broken pottery, a spindle whorl, gnawed bones, 

 etc., were at the same time cursorily investigated.''' 



The cave, that is, so far as it has been penetrated, is small and 

 irregular, consisting of two chambers which may be conveniently called 

 the Great and the Little caves. The former is an irregular oblong, 

 1 6 ft. by 23 ft. in plan, at its present floor level. The roof is so low 

 that there are but few places where a person can stand upright. 

 The floor is cumbered with large blocks of stone, some of which have 

 fallen from the roof, others rolled in through the entrance. Between 

 these blocks is a red marly soil, having all the characteristics of 

 the usual cave-earths of Umestone caves. It is impossible to say 

 exactly how deep this accumulation is, but probably it exceeds five 

 feet. The entrance, which is at the south-west end, is as wide and 

 apparently as deep as the chamber itself; but the actual portal 

 (marked D on the accompanying sketch-plan) is very small — only 

 sufficiently large, in fact, to admit one person at a time, and even 

 then with some difficulty. This contraction is due to the presence of 

 several large pieces of rock (e, e, e), which have been placed where 

 they are by art, or have fallen from the rocks above. At the north 

 corner is a narrow outlet (c), which may be the result of a slip ; after 

 several feet it becomes too narrow to be followed up. At the opposite 



* The Editor is responsible for the article thus far ; the remainder is the 

 result of Mr. Ward's subsequent and painstaking investigations. 



