144 Flint and Chert Implements (April, 
stalagmite in three different parts of the cavern, and in 
each instance found flint knives. ...In the spot where the 
most highly finished specimen was found, the passage was 
so low that it was extremely difficult, with quarrymen’s 
tools and good workmen, to break through the crust; and 
the supposition that it had been previously disturbed is im- 
possible.’’* 
Notwithstanding these repeated and concurrent announce- 
ments by independent and competent explorers, even the 
scientific world remained perfectly apathetic or altogether 
sceptical.: Nor were they more influenced by the researches, 
with similar results, carried on in the caverns near Liége, 
by Dr. Schmerling, in 1833-34, or those of M. Boucher de 
Perthes in the river gravels of the Somme, a few years 
later. This strange apathy appears to have been based 
partly on the impression that the work had not been 
executed with sufficient care, and partly on the feeling that 
the belief respecting the date of the first appearance of man 
on the earth which held possession of almost every mind 
neither could nor should be disturbed. 
Be this as it may, such was the attitude of most men of 
science up to 1858, when some quarrymen, in the ordinary 
course of their work, broke unexpectedly into a virgin 
cavern on Windmill Hill, Brixham, on the southern shore 
of Torbay. I almost immediately visited it, prevailed on 
the proprietor to discontinue the desultory excavations 
which he had begun, and secured from him the refusal of a 
lease in the cavern, in the hope that arrangements might be 
made for making a thorough and systematic exploration. 
It was soon after visited by the late Dr. Falconer, who, 
believing it might be capable of throwing light on certain 
paleontological problems then awaiting solution, prevailed 
on the Royal and Geological Societies of London to under- 
take the work. It was entrusted to a committee of the 
latter body, who placed it under my immediate super- 
intendence as the only member residing in the district. The 
investigation was begun in July, 1858, and in the following 
September I was able to announce to the British Association, 
at Leeds, that in the new cavern flint implements had been 
found under an unbroken floor of stalagmite, deep in the 
cave-earth, and mingled with the remains of the ordinary 
extinét cave mammals. It was at once felt that the method 
and care which had been observed in the work rendered it 
impossible to doubt or to ignore the facts, or to resist the 
* Report Brit. Assoc., 1847. Proceedings of the Sections, p. 73. 
