224; Royal Society. 



of the animals of the larger species were so gnawed and splintered, 

 and evidently of such ancient fracture, that no doubt could exist of 

 the cave having been a hyaena's den, similar to Kirkdale and Kent's 

 Hole. All the ancient remains were found in the upper regions of 

 the fissure, and were so firmly imbedded in the detritus, as not to 

 be extracted without difficulty with the pick-axe. Further on he 

 found a wet tenacious loam, abounding with an innumerable quan- 

 tity of bones, belonging exclusively to birds. After working six 

 days he came to a cavern, ten or twelve feet high, extending about 

 forty feet from north to south, and varying from eight to twenty 

 feet from east to west ; the floor of which was covered with bones 

 of sheep: and on digging into the mud and sand of which it con- 

 sisted, the bones of sheep, birds, cuttle-fish, and foxes, were disco- 

 vered. Some fine stalactites depended from the roof, and partial 

 spots of stalagmite appeared on the floor. In a fissure that branched 

 from the mouth of the main entrance there were found, among the 

 sand, a piece of black Roman pottery, and two coins, one of Didius 

 Julianus, and the other of Julia Mamma?a, together with bones of 

 sheep, cuttle-fish, foxes, and birds. 



The author considers that there exist evidences of the operation 

 of water at three distinct periods of time: — the first indicated by 

 the bones of the hyaena, and the other gnawed bones firmly im- 

 bedded in the diluvial detritus : the second, when sand was depo- 

 sited by the sea in the second fissure, that washed in through the 

 vertical chimney, and that inundated the whole valley up to Glas- 

 tonbury : tlie third irruption of the sea occurring within these fif- 

 teen hundred years, and choking up the adit from the level by which 

 the sheep and foxes had entered, floating in the bones of the cuttle- 

 fish, and depositing the thin crust of mud which covered the sand. 

 The coins and pottery he supposes to have been introduced through 

 this entrance from the level. 



The author next gives an account of the Hutton caverns, situated 

 on the northern escarpment of the range, commonly called Bleadon 

 Hill. This cavern had been discovered some time ago and noticed 

 by Mr. Catcott in his " Treatise on the Deluge :" but afterwards it 

 became inaccessible by the falling in of the roof and sides. The 

 author, led by some indications of pieces of ancient bones in the 

 rubbish of some old pits, sought for this cavern by sinking a shaft, 

 and succeeded in opening into it. The chambers he reached are 

 probably the western extremity of a very extensive range of ca- 

 verns, occurring in a region bearing marks of great disturbance, 

 abounding in chasms and fissures, and containing a great number 

 of bones. The principal of those discovered belong to the elephant, 

 tiger, hyaena, wolf, boar, horse, fox, hare, rabbit, rat, mouse, and 

 bird. No trace of the bones of the ox were discovered here, al- 

 though in the cave at Banwell Hill, about a mile distant, they 

 abound ; while, on the other hand, no vestige of the horse is met 

 with. 



Among the remarkable specimens found in the Hutton caverns 

 were the milk-teeth and other remains of a calf elephant about two 



years 



1 



