KNOWLEDGE • 



87 



PLAlNLY'^f ORIjED -£XACTLffljESCRIBjE|^ 



LOSDOX. FRIDAY, JVLY 7. 1882. 



Contexts op No. 36. 



PA6>. r^ci. 



Alktiqnitj of Man in Western , Future Sources of our Food Supplr : 



Eniope— rv. Bj Edward Clodd. 67. Ansfralssia. Bt Percy Boasell.. 92 



How to Get StroDg— III. (/««»- I Shakespeare Studies W 



«w<eiO 88 Guide to the Alps M 



Photoet^hic Spectmm o( Comet Tricvcle Ridine for Ladies 93 



WeUs. Bt Dr. W. Huggins, | Butterflies and Moths 9.1 



F.B.S. (lUuslraUJ) S9 Weather Diagram for the Week 98 



Aids to the Study of Geology. By Cokkespo^tdbscb 9r-99 



W. Jerome Harrison, F.G.S 90 I Answers to Correspondenta i>9 



FngHsh Seaside Health- Resorts, I Our Mattiematieal Column 101 



By Alfred Hariland, M.H.C.S., Our Chess Column 103 



F.B.M.C.S. Lond 91 Our Whist Column IM 



I 



ANTIQUITY OF MAN IX WESTEEX 

 EUROPE. 



By Edward Clodd, 

 PART IV. 



KENT'S HOLE, or Cavern, Ues in a hill in the vale of 

 Ilsham, about a mile eastward of Torquay liarbour, 

 and half-a-mile from the coast. It comprises, as the openings 

 in the face of the cliff indicate, two caverns which run 

 parallel with each other, widening here and there into 

 chambers to the extreme limit, when a passage connects 

 them. An inscription in one of the chambers, known as the 

 " Cave of Inscriptions," shows that some curious traveller 

 had wandered into its recesses nearly 200 years ago, and it 

 was partially sur\-eyed in 1825 and following years ; but it 

 is to the systematic research and unceasing superintendence 

 of Mr. Pengelly since 18G.5 that we owe that full knowledge 

 of its contents from which irrefragable conclusions con- 

 cerning the high antiquity of man in this quarter of the 

 globe are drawn. 



Entering the eastem'division, to which the labours of Mr, 

 Pengelly and his committee have been restricted, we find 

 the deposits to occur in the following order, beginning with 

 the uppermost : — 



Xeolitiiic, — 1, Blocks of limestone.'wcigking from a few pounds 

 to npwai^s of 100 tons, which have fallen from the roof nndcr the 

 action of frost, Ac, and of which mnny are cemented together b_v 

 carbonate of lime, i.e., stalai^nitc, 2, Black muddy mould, from 

 three inches to as many feet in thickness ; composed almost entirely 

 of decayed vegetable matter. 



Pal roLtTHic, — 3, Granular stalagmite, varying in thickness from 

 a few inches to five feet. 4. Layer of charred wood, about four 

 inches in depth, bnt occurring in one part of the cavern only, near 

 the entrance. This is known as the Black Band. 5. I.ight-red 

 loam, called the Cave-earth, the actual depth of which, thronghont, 

 is unascertained, as the examinations have been limitetl mainly to a 

 depth of fotir feet beneath the stalagmite, 0. Crystalline stalag- 

 mite, from three to twelve feet thick. 7, Dark-red snmly deposit 

 quite free from limestone, in which quartz pebbles and fragments of 

 grit are imbedded. Tliis is calletl breccia. 



In conveniently classifying these deposits by the animal 

 remains found in thcin, Mr. Pengelly calls the two upper- 

 most (which are included in Neolithic times) the Ovine 

 period, because the sheep is never fotind below them, all 



the bones being those of animals still extant. The three 

 deposits immediately below these, numbered .3, 4, and ."J 

 in the above list, he call the llij(^nine period, lieca'use the 

 bones of that animal predominate. The two lowest deposits 

 he calls the Urxine period, because lx)nes only of the ca\-e- 

 bear are found in them. Passing through the black mould, 

 the varying contents of which lie within the province of 

 the antiquary, we reach the uppermost layer of tJie Hyo'- 

 nine period, the bed of granular stalagmite. Mingled with 

 the remains of various animals, more or less extinct, as the 

 mammoth, cave-bear, cave-hy.-cna, etc., with shells.of cockles 

 and cuttle-fish, with charred wood and rounded pebbles ; 

 wo find herein flint^flakes, implements, and cores, or flint- 

 nodules from which flakes have been struck ; and, at a 

 depth of twenty inches, a portion of a human upper jaw, 

 containing four teeth, together with a fifth tooth lying 

 near it. 



The black band, the site where the cave-men kindled 

 their fires for cooking, or perchance for warmth and for 

 scaring wild animals, contained about three hundred and 

 fifty flint flakes and cores, an aV)undance of charred wood, 

 a bone awl, bone harpoon, and needle with a well-formed 

 eye (in the Dordogne caves the stone implements were 

 found with which the eyes were drilled in the needles), and 

 the remains of rhinoceros, cave hya?na, horse, ox, bear, &c. 



The cave-earth was richest of all in the number of stone 

 implements, and the abundance of teeth and bones. The 

 flint implements were of a markedly higher type than 

 those of the Drift, and, in their variety, suggestive of cave- 

 man's fertility of resource, as compared with his prede 

 cessors, for the list includes well-worn stone hammers and 

 whetstones, a bone pin, and barbed harpoons. The crys- 

 talline stalagmite contained bones of the cave-bear only, 

 but in the breccia, there were found, mingled with remains 

 of that aniF.ial, implements of flint and chert, " much 

 more rudely formed, more massive and less symmetrical in 

 form than those obtained from the cave-earth and black 

 band," and made, Mr. Pengelly adds, "by operating, not 

 on flakes, but directly on nodules, of which portions of the 

 original surface generally remain.'' 



Before making brief reference to content.s special to the 

 bone-caverns of the Continent, it should l>e asked how the 

 above l)ears out what was said in the first paper of this 

 series concerning the enormous duration and remoteness of 

 the ancient Stone Age. Of its remoteness we find suf 

 ficing evidence in the deepening of the valley to the extent 

 of between 60 and 70 ft. since man and his congeners 

 had refuge in Kent's Hole, while the period demanded for 

 this scooping out is itself limited when companxl with the 

 time required for the successive deposits in the cavern, and 

 for the intermittent interruptions which they sutlered by 

 the streams of running water which, a.-; the layers of loam 

 and sand, with their enclosed pebViles, show, now and again 

 entered the cave, disturbing the older deposits. 



At first sight it may appear that an easy nietiiod of 

 getting rough measure of the time iavolved in the dcposi 

 tion of stalagmite is at hand in watching the rato at which 

 it goes on now. But no such criterion serves u.s, because 

 the rate at which stali\gniite accunmlates varies extremely, 

 being determined by states of climate, by air currents, by 

 the quantity and quality of the water, by tlie greater or 

 lesser porosity of the rock in course of dissolution, and 

 other causes, marked variations of rate occurring even in 

 the same cave. " In the Ingleborough cave, in Yorkshire, it 

 has been so swift that between 184.^ and 1S7.T a stalag- 

 niitic l)0ss, known as the Jockey Cap, has grown at the 

 rate of -2941 inch per annum ;' but such a rate is 

 exceptional, as otherwise our caves would speedily have 

 been filled up with such accretions. 



