FOWKE] ARCHEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS 109 



baster, have been quarried from some of the deposits, while a hirge 

 number of flint nodules has been dug out of the cave-earth where they 

 fell from the disintegrating limestone. Some of this labor was car- 

 ried on more than a mile from daylight. 



The mouth of the cave was formerly almost closed by a mass of 

 talus. About 10 feet has been removed from the top of this, so that 

 one may now walk in without difficulty. On the inner side of the por- 

 tion remaining there is a slope for 96 feet, to a vertical depth of a 

 little more than 27 feet. The next 100 feet gives a descent of about 3 

 feet ; then another steep slope begins. The first point at which bed- 

 rock floor is found within the cave is 120 feet lower than the point 

 of entry. It is supposed that the drainage to which the cave owes its 

 origin was outward ; if this was the case the floor must be more than 

 120 feet below the roof at the doorway. AVliile this may be true, it is 

 not indicated by the condition of the visible strata. For about 50 

 feet outward the side walls are nearly parallel and nowhere more than 

 30 feet apart. Then they terminate at an angle in the outcrop of the 

 ledge along the hillside. The appearance and condition of the upper 

 strata, together with this narrow separation of the side walls outside 

 the cave, produce the impression that at a period not very remote the 

 roof of the cavern reached to the outcropping ledge in which the 

 walls end. Even though the rock floor should be at the great depth 

 supposed there is a possibility that an earth floor could be found 

 below the detritus which has accumulated since the roof fell in or 

 has worn away. 



To test the matter a shaft was begun at a point 16 feet in front 

 of the doorway. This was as near as such work could be done 

 without interfering with the advent of visitors, and allowed a mar- 

 gin of 30 feet toward the outer slope. The shaft, 6 feet in diameter, 

 soon passed into a compact mass of red clay filled with rocks of 

 various sizes. At 14 feet down this was broken by an irregular 

 stratiun averaging a foot in thickness, of coarse sand or fine gravel 

 with a slight admixture of clay, such as would form in a running 

 stream. Its slope was inward or toward the cave. As there are 

 sandstone ledges on the hillside above, this sand may have come 

 from them, but, if so, it is singular that none appeared elsewhere. 

 At 18 feet down was a mass of travertine measuring nearly 3 feet 

 across and from 6 to 12 inches thick. It had formed around the 

 lower part of a stalagmite 18 inches long, and the bottom of the 

 whole formation rested horizontally on clay. This gave the excava- 

 tors hope that an earth floor had been reached, as the stalagmite 

 was vertical and resembled in all respects stalagmites in the cave. But 

 it was soon found to be a foreign inclusion, and the same confused 

 mixture of clay and stone continued below as above. Various frag- 

 ments of stalactites and stalagmites were found as part of the detri- 



