CHAP. vi. BRIXHAM CAVE DEPOSITS. 101 



tached bone of the knee-pan was searched for, and not in 

 vain. Here, therefore, we have evidence of an entire limb 

 not having been washed in a fossil state out of an older 

 alluvium, and then swept afterwards into a cave, so as to be 

 mingled with flint implements, but having been introduced 

 when clothed with its flesh, or at least when it had the 

 separate bones bound together by their natural ligaments, 

 and in that state buried in mud. 



If they were not all of contemporary date, it is clear from 

 this case, and from the humerus of the Ursus spelceus, 

 before cited, as found in a floor of stalagmite, that the bear 

 lived after the flint tools were manufactured, or in other 

 words, that man in this district preceded the cave-bear. 



A glance at the position of the Brixham limestone con 

 taining the ossiferous caverns and fissures, and a brief survey 

 of the valleys which bound it on two sides, are enough to 

 satisfy a geologist that the drainage and geographical fea 

 tures of this region have undergone great changes since the 

 gravel and bone-earth were carried by streams into the sub 

 terranean cavities above described. Some worn pebbles of 

 hematite, in particular, can only have come from their 

 nearest parent rock, at a period when the valleys imme 

 diately adjoining the caves were much shallower than they 

 now are. The reddish loam in which the bones are em 

 bedded is such as may be seen on the surface of limestone in 

 the neighbourhood, but the currents which were formerly 

 charged with such mud must have run at a level sixty feet 

 above that of the stream now flowing in the same valley. 

 It was remarked by Mr. Pengelly, that the pebbles in the 

 gravel and the bones in the loam had their longer axes 

 parallel to the direction of the tunnels and fissures, showing 

 that they were deposited by the action of a stream. 



It appears that so long as the flowing water had force 

 enough to propel stony fragments, no layer of fine mud could 



