CHAP. X. FOSSIL WORKS OP ART IN SOMERSETSHIRE. 171 



fissure, choked, up to the roof with ossiferous loam, was then, 

 for the first time, exposed to view. This great cavity, origin- 

 ally nine feet high and thirty-six wide, traversed the dolo- 

 mitic conglomerate; and fragments of that rock, some 

 angular and others water-worn, were scattered through the 

 red mud of the cave, in which fossil remains were abundant. 

 For an account of them and the position they occupied, we 

 are indebted to Mr. Dawkins, F.G.S., who, in company with 

 jVIr. Williamson, explored the cavern in 1859, and obtained 

 from it the bones of the Hycena spelcea in such numbers as to 

 lead him to conclude that the cavern had for a long time been 

 a hyena's den. Among the accompanying animals found 

 fossil in the same bone-earth wei-e observed Elephas primi- 

 geiiius, Rhinoceros tichorhinus, Ursus spelceus, Bos primigeniiis, 

 Megaceros Sibernicus, Cervus Tarandus (and other species 

 of Cervus'), Ursus spelceus, Felis spelcea, Canis Lupus, Ccinis 

 Vulpes, and teeth and bones of the genus Ecpius in great 

 numbers. 



Intermixed with the above fossil bones were some arrow- 

 heads, made of bone, and many chipped flints and chij^ped 

 pieces of chert, a white or bleached flint weapon of the 

 spear-head Amiens type, which was taken out of the undis- 

 turbed matrix by Mr. Williamson himself, together with a 

 h3^ena's tooth, — showing that man had either been contem- 

 poraneous with or had jDreceded the extinct fauna. After 

 penetrating thirty-four feet from the entrance, Mr. Dawkins 

 found the cave bifurcating into two branches, one of which 

 was vertical. By this rent, perhaps, some part of the con- 

 tents of the cave may have been introduced.* 



When I examined the spot in 1860, after I had been shown 

 some remains of the hja^na collected there, I felt convinced 

 that a complete revolution must have taken place in the 



* W. B. Dawkins, F.G.S., Geological Society's Proceedings, January, 1862. 



