TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 121 



Conjecture was long busy as to their destination ; they were thought by some to be 

 bodkins ; by others, for confining the hair, Uke those ornaments used by the women 

 in Italy ; lastly, they were supposed, with more probability, to be a species of pin 

 for fastening the skin in front which served savages for garments. 



The shaggy wolfish skin he wore, 

 Pinn'd by a polish'd bone before. 



"The third article does not seem quite so easy to explain: it is of a different shape, 

 quite flat, broad at one end, pointed at the other ; the broad part retains the trun- 

 cated form of a comb, the teeth of which were broken off near their root, — whether 

 it was used as a comb or for making nets for fishing, is not clear. There was only 

 this solitary one found, and two of the former, but several of the first, with a quantity 

 of bone chips. All three bore marks of polish. Nearer the mouth are collected a 

 good number of shells of the mussel, limpet, and oyster, with a palate of the Scarus. 

 This, as well as the nacker of oysters, which was thickly disseminated through the 

 mould, served, as they do at the present day among savages, most probably for 

 ornament. The shell-fish may have furnished bait for fishing. The presence of 

 these rude articles render it probable that they were collected here by the ancient 

 aborigines, who divided their time between the chase and fishing in the adjacent sea. 



"Closeto the opposite wall, in the same passage, buried in black mould, I found a 

 stone hatchet, or celt, of syenite, the only one found in the cavern. Another of the 

 same material, but of a different shape, I found shortly after, not far from the 

 cavern near Anstis Cove, which the labourers engaged in making the new cut had 

 just thrown up with the mould. As we advanced towards the second mouth, on 

 the same level, were found, though sparingly, pieces of pottery. The most remark- 

 able product of this gallery were round pieces of blue slate, about an inch and n half 

 in diameter and a quarter thick. It may have served, like the Kimmeridge coal, for 

 money. In the same quarter were likewise found several round pieces of sandstone 

 grit, about the form and size of a dollar, but thicker, and rounded at the edge, and 

 in the centre pierced with a hole, by means of which they seem to have been strung 

 together like beads. Clusters of small pipes or icicles of spar, such as depended 

 from the roof at our first visit, we saw collected here in heaps buried in the mud. 

 Similar collections we had occasion to observe accompanied by charcoal, throughout 

 the entire range of the cavern, sometimes in pits excavated in the stalagmite. 

 Copper ore with these various articles in the same stuff was picked up ; a lump 

 much oxidized, which the late Mr. Phillips analysed, was found to be pure virgin 

 ore. Though this branch of the cavern is more spacious and the mouth more ample, 

 it by no means furnished an equal proportion of antiquities as the other. Several 

 of these articles were slightly encrusted with a pellicle of stalagmite, according as 

 they happened to lie within the reach of the drop when exposed on the surface. 

 Having taken a general survey of the surface of the floor, we returned to the point 

 from which we set out, viz. the common passage, for the purpose of piercing into 

 the materials below the mould. Here, in sinking a foot into the soil (for of sta- 

 lagmite there remained only the broken edges adhering to the sides of the passage, 

 and which appeared to be repeated at intervals), we came upon flints in all forms, — 

 confusedly disseminated through the earth, and intermixed with fossil and human 

 bones, the whole slightly agglutinated together by calcareous matter derived from 

 the roof. My collection possesses an example of this aggregation in a mass consisting 

 of pebbles, clay, and bone, in the midst of which is imbedded a fine blade of flint, 

 all united together by a sparry cement. The flints were in all conditions, from the 

 rounded pebble, as it came out of the chalk, to the instruments fabricated from them, 

 as arrow- and spear-heads, and hatchets. Some of the flint- blocks were chipped only 

 on one side, such as had probably furnished the axes, others had been on several faces, 

 presenting planes corresponding exactly to the long blades found by their side, and 

 from which they had been evidently sliced off ; other pebbles vs?ere still more angu- 

 larly chipped at all points, which were no doubt those which yielded the small arrow- 

 heads, which abounded in by far the greatest number. Small irregular splinters, 

 not referable to any of the above divisions, and which seem to have been struck off 

 in the operation of detaching the latter, not unlike the small chips in a sculptor's 

 shop, were thickly scattered through the stuff, indicating that this spot was the 

 workshop where the savage prepared his weapons of the chase, taking advantage of 



