CHAP. VI. BRIXHAM CAVE DErOSITS. 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 

 alluviam, and then swejit 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 sepa- 

 rate 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 spelams, 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 j)Osition 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 j)articular, can only have come from their near- 

 est parent rock, at a period when the valleys immediately 

 adjoining the caves were much shallower than they now are. 

 The i-eddish loam in which the bones are imbedded is such 

 as may be seen on the surface of limestone in the neighbor- 

 hood, but the currents which were formerlj^ charged with such 

 mild 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 the stream. 



It appears that so long as the flowing water had force 

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



