114 



POPULAR SCIEI^CE I^EWS. 



[August, 1888. 



When brought into contact with a spark of 

 fire, the oxj-gen of the saltpetre combines with 

 the carbon and sulphur so rapidly, that the 

 combustion is almost instantaneous ; and a 

 large volume of carbonic and sulphurous acid 

 gases is formed with explosive rapidity. 

 The instability which the presence of nitrogen 

 confers upon a molecule is weU illustrated in 

 this case. Nitrate of potash (KNO3) , as we 

 have seen, gives up its oxygen with the ut- 

 most ease ; while carbonate of potash (KjCOg) , 

 which only differs from it by the substitution 

 of carbon for nitrogen, is one of the most sta- 

 ble of substances, and is onl}' decomposed 

 under the influence of powerful chemical re- 

 agents. 



— »^ 



[Original in Popular Science News.'] 



KENT'S CAVERN : ITS WONDERFUL STORY 

 OF PREHISTORIC MAN. 



BY SAMUEL BKAZIER. 

 PART I. 



That the body and mind of man have been 

 slowly developed during immensely long periods 

 of time, before any thing like what we call civili- 

 zation was possible, is an opinion now pretty gen- 

 erally entertained. That man has lived on the 

 earth for hundreds of thousands of years is certain: 

 that he may have lived here for millions of years is 

 possible, and even probable. His great antiquity, 

 his existence as a contemporary of races of animals 

 now extinct, that he has lived during changes of 

 climate vastly greater than any that have occurred 

 during the historic period, and his existence on 

 the earth when parts of the present continents were 

 submerged beneath the seas, are facts made evi- 

 dent by the revelations of geology during the pres- 

 ent century. Much of this evidence of man's 

 antiquity, and of his habits of life during pre- 

 historic ages, has been obtained by the examination 

 of caves, which in all times have been the ready- 

 made homes of men as well as of other animals. 



In many of these ancient dwelhng-places are 

 found the teeth and bones of great numbers of 

 animals, both of extinct and of surviving species, 

 buried together, with flint or bone knives, combs, 

 scrapers, arrowheads, saws, hatchets, hammers, 

 and other human implements. 



One of the most interesting of such caves occurs 

 in the county of Devon in England. On account 

 of its beauty, Devonshire has been called the gar- 

 den of England. On its southern coast, which is 

 washed by the waters of the British Channel, stands 

 one of the most frequented of English watering- 

 places, known as Torquay. Near to this town 

 there is a large cave, known from time immemorial 

 by the name of Kent's Cavern. 



The origin of the name is unknown. For a hun- 

 dred years it has been frequented as a place of 

 curiosity by visitors to Torquay; and the guides 

 repeat a tradition that a dog was once taken into 

 the cave, and lost there, and that it was subse- 

 quently found in Kent, about a hundred miles away. 

 It was therefore supposed that a subterranean pas- 

 sage extended from Devonshire to Kent and so 

 the cave was called "Kent's Cavern." This is 

 probably only idle gossip, and no one knows when 

 or why the cave received its name. It is situated 

 in one of the beautiful valleys of Devonshire, and 

 may be entered through either of two apertures in 

 a vertical limestone cliff that rises to a height of 

 about thirty feet. 



Bones were first discovered in the cave in the 

 year 1824 by a Mr. Northmore and by Sir Walter 

 Trevelyan. In the following year a more sys- 



tematic examination of the cave was made by the 

 Rev. John McEnery, who discovered a great num- 

 ber of teeth and bones of animals now extinct. 

 Speaking of some of the first fossils he disinterred, 

 he says: "They were the first fossil teeth I had 

 ever seen; and as I laid my hand on them, relics 

 of extinct races, and witnesses of an order of things 

 which passed away with them, I shrank back in- 

 voluntarily." 



The excitement was not likely to grow less as 

 his work proceeded. He found in this cave the 

 remains of the following animals: elephant, rhi- 

 noceros, several species of horse, two species of 

 ox, Irish elk, two species of red deer and another 

 species smaller than the red, reindeer, hyena, lion, 

 wolf, fox, bat, weasel, lagomys (an animal now 

 found in Siberia), inole, land-rat, water-rat, vole, 

 three species of bear, and an animal called Ma- 

 chairodus latidens. But he not only found the 

 remains of these animals, representing arctic, tem- 

 perate, and torrid climes, and belonging to species 

 long since extinct: what was more surprising and 

 more significant was the discovery with them of 

 the evidences of human existence in the form of 

 human implements, showing that man had lived on 

 the earth at the same time as these extinct races of 

 animals. Piercing through the stalagmite which 

 formed the solid floor of the cave, he found in 

 the red earth beneath, burie^J^h the remains of 

 extinct animals, flint arrowhelaas and lance-heads, 

 which testified to the existence of man. He says, 

 ' ' This electrified me. ' ' He called his fellow-laborers 

 to witness the discovery, and in their presence dug 

 out from the same spot the teeth of an ox, and flint 

 arrowheads that had been made by man. He 

 showed these flints to Dr. Buokland, who was so 

 slow to receive this evidence of man's great antiq- 

 uity, that he suggested the theory that the ancient 

 Britons had probably used the cave, and made 

 ovens in it, and that some of their flint implements 

 might have fallen through crevices in the stalag- 

 mite into the red marl below. 



This, however, seems impossible. It was hardly 

 possible that the ancient Britons would break 

 through several feet of stalagmite; and this solid 

 limestone floor afforded no evidence of ever having 

 been disturbed, nor could any traces of their ovens 

 be discovered. Arrowheads and knives of flint, 

 and other remains of human art, occur in all parts 

 of the cave, and through the entire thickness of 

 the clay, and in the same places as the teeth and 

 bones of extinct animals. 



The Torquay Natural History Society appointed 

 a sub-committee in 1846 to explore certain parts 

 of the cavern, and they found exactly the same 

 kind of things that McEnery had found. Mr. 

 Vivian, a member of this sub-committee, drew up 

 a report, which was read to the British Association 

 in 1847, and also to the Geological Society. 



In this report, published in the British Asso- 

 ciation's Transactions, the following passage occurs : 

 " The important point that we have established is, 

 that the relics of human art are found under the 

 unbroken floor of stalagmite. After taking every 

 precaution by sweeping the surface, and examining 

 most minutely whether there were traces of the 

 floor having been previously disturbed, we broke 

 through the solid stalagmite in three different parts 

 of the cavern, and in each instance found flint 

 knives." 



In the present day, when our minds have become 

 somewhat familiar with the idea of man's great 

 antiquity as revealed by the science of geology, it 

 is curious to look back forty years, and learn 

 how these statements in reference to the discov- 

 eries in Kent'.*: Cavern were received by the scientific 

 world. We should rather expect that ordinary 

 individuals who had been taught that the world 



was created four thousand and four years before 

 the birth of Jesus Chri.st, would smile incredu- 

 lously when told that man had really lived on the 

 earth for hundreds of thousands of years, when it 

 was inhabited by the Irish elk, the mammoth, the 

 woolly elephant, the cave bear, and other races of 

 animals long since passed away. But how were 

 such statements received by the scientific world 

 forty years ago? They were utterly rejected! Sci- 

 entific men were not prepared to receive them, and 

 doubted the facts which were offered in evidence 

 of their correctness. Although Mr. Vivian's paper, 

 as already stated, was read before the Geological 

 Society, The Quarterly Journal of that society 

 refused to publish the facts. Men of science were 

 incredulous, and they based their scepticism mainly 

 on two points: First, they hesitated to believe 

 that flint tools, the work of human hands, had 

 been found, with the remains of extinct animals. 

 The gentlemen who had explored the cavern were 

 clear in their statement of these facts ; but scien- 

 tific men refused to believe, objecting that the ex- 

 ploration had not been carried on in a sufficiently 

 systematic manner. This, as we shall see, led to 

 further researches, conducted in so systematic a 

 manner as to compel the acceptance of the facts 

 that were disclosed. 



A second groHpd of scepticism on the part of 

 scientific men had reference to the animal called 

 Machairodus latidens. It was then called Ursus 

 cultridens, and was supposed to be a species of 

 bear, as its name implies. The remains of this 

 animal had never been found in Britain. Animal 

 remains of the same genus, though not of the same 

 species, had been found in caves on the continent 

 of Europe, the deposits in which were known to 

 be older than those in Kent's Cavern ; but none 

 had ever been found in England. It was therefore 

 doubted whether the remains of Machairodus lati- 

 dens, which Mr. McEnery thought he dug out of 

 Kent's Cavern, had actually been found there. 



In 1864 the British Association met at Bath. A 

 committee was appointed to carry on a careful and 

 systematic exploration of the cavern. The com- 

 mittee consisted of some of the most eminent sci- 

 entific men, such as Sir Charles Lyell, Sir John 

 Lubbock, and others. This committee continued 

 its researches for years under the personal daily 

 superintendence of its honorary secretary, W. Pen- 

 gelly, Esq., F.R.S. 



(Concluded next number.) 



[Special correspondence of the Popular Science JiTews.] 

 PARIS LETTER. 



As is usually the case, at the beginning of the 

 summer season the inhabitants of Paris have to 

 submit to the periodical plague of being compelled, 

 in parts of the town, to use Seine water for drink- 

 ing and other purposes. The rivers and springs 

 which furnish Paris with water generally cease 

 in summer to supply water enough for the require- 

 ments of the town, and the authorities in charge 

 of the water-service are compelled to give Seine 

 water in place of the usual supply. This generally 

 provokes an outburst of indignation. It has been 

 undeniably proved that Seine water does contain 

 bacilli of the typhoid-fever, and the Parisian popu- 

 lation objects to being refreshed with such poison. 

 Ifis true, the engineers and civil authorities — non- 

 medical — declare that the presence of typhoid ba- 

 cilli is not exactly ascertained, and that, if it were, 

 it would be of no importance. The Parisians 

 believe more in physicians than in the unqualified 

 authorities. It is really a shame, that, after the 

 very exact and accurate researches made concern- 

 ing the presence of typhoid bacilli in Seine water, 

 such water should be once more distributed to an ■ 



