138 THE CRESWELL CAVES. 



quartzite, ironstone, greenstone, and flint.* The numerous flint-flakes 

 and fragments of charcoal in the breccia above the cave-earth seem to 

 indicate that man was then the normal inhabitant of the cave ; while 

 the broken bones of that animal prove that he fed on hares. Although 

 the remains of the dog were found in the deposit, the associated appear- 

 ances lead to the belief that it was not then the companion of man. 



Passing round to the opposite side of the lake, the visitors entered 

 what is called " The Church Hole," a fissure-cave in the cliff about five 

 feet wide, and about fifteen feet above the level of the water. It runs 

 horizontally into the limestone for 155 feet, and then rises at a considerable 

 angle for another forty-ODe feet, where it ends in a choked- up crack. A 

 passage had been cut through the deposits which formed the floor of 

 this cave, showing a section of them on either hand. A large number of 

 bones of the woolly rhinoceros, the mammoth, the horse, the reindeer, 

 the bison, the brown bear, and the hyena were met with during the 

 excavations here. The greatest thickness of these deposits was nine 

 feet, which occurred at a point thirty-one feet from the entrance to the 

 cave. The deposits themselves were found to be almost identical in 

 character with those of "Robin Hood's Parlour," and doubtless were 

 accumulated at the same time and under similar conditions. It only 

 remains to be added that this cave was illuminated by lime light. 



" In the Creswell Caves," says the Rev. J. M. Mello, F.G.S., in a very 

 interesting paper read before the Burton-on-Trent Natural History 

 and Archaeological Society.t " they had a most important chapter 

 in the history of early man — a sequence of implement-bearing 

 beds, which showed a progress in civilisation such as had not been 

 observed in any other series of caverns in any other part of the world- 

 They learned from them that even the Palaeolithic age of man had its 

 periods — the earliest, that in which man was a savage in the very lowest 

 stage of civilisation, having only such tools as he could roughly fashion 

 out of pebbles. These were followed by tools made of flint, as a more 

 tractable and better cutting material. Those were improved upon, and 

 were even supplemented by bone and other materials for tools. The 

 discoveries at Creswell, where the better-finished type of implements 

 were found above the ruder, showed either that the more civilised men 

 succeeded the earlier savage race, or that the latter, in the course of 

 ages, improved in the art of tool-making, and learnt not only to shape the 

 flint more elaborately, but also to make use of bone for domestic 

 purposes." 



The remainder of the day was devoted to an inspection of the 

 magnificent subterranean galleries and halls of Welbeck Abbey, two 

 miles away. Here the marvellous dimensions of some of the buildings, 

 and the richness of ornamentation that met the eye at every turn, excited 

 wonder and admiration, though why the majority of the new apartments 

 should be constructed with their ceilings level with the grassy slopes of 

 the park was a paradox no one could solve. 



* The implements and ornaments of Palaeolithic age found in Robin Hood's 

 Cave alone amounted to no less than 1,040. 



t " Caves and their Occupants," in the " Third Annual Report of the Burton- 

 on-Trent Natural History and Archseological Society." (1879.) 



