188 



EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. 



[CHAP. vii. 



The Caves of Castleton and MatlocJc. 



The same group as those from the lower red sand, 

 middle cave-earth, and upper breccia, has recently been 



met with in the caves of 

 Derbyshire, at Matlock 

 Bath, by Mr. Eobert Law, 1 

 and in the Peak cavern 

 in a fissure at Windy 

 Knoll, near Castleton. 

 From the last Mr. Eooke 

 Pennington 2 and myself 

 obtained no less than 6800 

 specimens, irrespective of 

 fragments thrown aside, 

 belonging principally to 

 the bison and reindeer, 

 together with bears, 



FIG. 59. Ossiferons Deposit at 



Windy Knoll. wolves, loxes, and hares. 



A. Yellow loam without bones, 4 feet. This Vast accumulation of 



B. Yellow clay with blocks of stone -, 



and bones, 8 feet. bones, in an area not 



c. clayey debris, 6 feet. mor e than 25 by 18 feet, 



had been formed in the bottom of a swallow hole 

 (Fig. 59), used as a drinking-place by migratory bodies 

 of animals. It is about 1600 feet above the sea, at a 

 point in the Pennine chain where the magnificent 



the same way, left behind in the cave not earlier than the fifth or sixth 

 century after Christ. Both it and the other bones of sheep or goat were 

 probably involved in the clay in one of the frequent slips which took 

 place while the work was going on, and by which similar bones were let 

 down from the refuse-heap above while I was conducting the first part 

 of the exploration . See reports on Victoria Cave, Brit. Ass. Reports, 1870-78. 



1 Trans. Manchester Geol. Soc. xv. p. 51. 



2 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond. xxxi. p. 246 ; xxxiii. p. 724. 



