ON CAVES. By T. McKENNY HUGHES, M.A., F.S.A., 

 F.G.S., Woodwardian Professor of Geology, Cambridge. 



"1VTOW and then it falls to our lot to find an old MS. which 

 JL.I throws a flood of light upon some obscure part of 

 history. It had been put aside, buried under a heap of 

 documents of more immediate importance, forgotten till some 

 accident exposed it, some more careful eye caught sight of 

 it, some more experienced judgment recognised its interest. 



Such to the geologist is a cave. 



He runs his eye over the contents ; they may be of little 

 value, or may settle what has long been a matter of speculation 

 or of controversy. They may be a record of the household 

 consumption of some wild beast in his castle ; they may tell of 

 the ancient conflict of forces of nature now at rest ; or they 

 may derive their chief interest from the character of the 

 material on which the record is preserved. 



But the MS. might be passed over, or not read aright, 

 if the discoverer be no paleographer. 



So the observer may arrive at very wrong conclusions as to 

 the age and history of a cave, unless he be familiar with the 

 operations of nature which form and fill such caves. This, 

 then, is the point on which I invite discussion this evening : 

 The formation of caves and cave-deposits, with references to 

 some of the more interesting of those which have been 

 explored. 



To arrange our subject, I would first notice that there 

 are artificial as well as natural caves, and many natural caves 



