JET. 46.] HUGH FALCONER. Ill 



In his researches now on the antiquity of man, he 

 went hand in hand with his friend, Dr Hugh Falconer, 1 

 who two or three years before had returned to England 

 from a long career in the East, where for a time he had 

 been director of the Botanic Gardens at Saharunpore, 

 and subsequently of those at Calcutta. It was, how- 

 ever, as a paleontologist that Hugh Falconer was best 

 known, and as joint author with Sir Proby Cautley of 

 a work on the fossil fauna of the Sewalik Hills, the 

 ' Fauna Antiqua Sivalensis.' 



Ossiferous caves had from time to time been dis- 

 covered in England, but after the publication of Dr 

 Buckland's 'Reliquiae Diluvianae' in 1823, the subject 

 long ceased to attract attention. Falconer and Prest- 

 wich were, however, cognisant of the fact that the 

 fossil contents of several caverns had been crowded 

 together pell-mell in local museums, occasionally with- 

 out any label to show where they had been found. 



Both palaeontologist and geologist were keenly alive 

 to the importance of carefully working out any cave 

 evidence, and the opportunity they sought soon offered 

 for the systematic excavation of the contents of a 

 cavern. 



On the 10th of May 1858, Dr Falconer addressed 

 a letter to the Secretary of the Geological Society of 

 London, announcing the discovery of a new and un- 

 disturbed cave on Windmill Hill overhanging Brixham 

 village, near Torquay. It was situated on a slope in 

 the same tract of Devonian limestone in which the 

 caverns of Kent's Hole, Anstey's Cove, Chudleigh, and 

 Berry Head are found. Mr Philp, a dyer, had bought 

 the site with the intention of utilising the limestone 

 and building cottages, when, in November 1857, a small 

 hole was detected in quarrying. Further work revealed 



1 Born February 29, 1808 ; died January 31, 1865. 



