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uearly identical with that cut by the Komans, is about 100 feet 

 above the sea-level^ from which the bank rises in a steep slope^ 

 composed of fallen blocks of stone. The road bends inward 

 into the cliff, which here recedes in a little cove facing the 

 N.W., at the bottom of which was the cave. The remains of 

 this consist of a stalagmite floor, about 18 inches in its 

 general thickness, extending inward from the road toward the 

 cliff about six paces, and in breadth along the road about 

 nine paces. The roof and sides of the cave are gone, but at 

 the back the vertical cliff presents a sort of niche with the 

 top slightly arched, and corresponding to the back of the 

 cave, which must have been nine yards broad and of consi- 

 derable height, with an arched roof. It has evidently been a 

 sea-cave, excavated at the bottom of a small cove or indenta- 

 tion in the cliff, and at a time when the sea was about 

 100 feet above its present level. Near the cave, the cliff 

 rises in a series of little terraces, on which grain had been 

 sown ; and over the top runs an old road or track which seems 

 to have been that in use when the early Assyrian and Egyptian 

 tablets were cut on the rock, as they are evidently related to 

 the level of this and not to that of the present road. 



Whether the roof of the cavern had fallen in before the 

 Eoman road was made is uncertain ; but it is clear that the 

 floor of the cave was cut into in making the road, and at least 

 the debris of its sides and roof used in forming the bank, as 

 large masses, both of the stalagmite and of the limestone rock, 

 lie on the slope, some of the latter holding characteristic 

 cretaceous corals, which belong to the soft bed in which the 

 cave was originally excavated. A large slab of the bone-breccia 

 eight feet in length, now forms part of the parapet of the 

 road, and would make a magnificent museum specimen. The 

 exposed surfaces of the stalagmite, and the pieces on the bank, 

 were carefully searched for teeth and bones and flint knives, and 

 the specimens found will be described in the sequel.* Search 

 was also made in the little terraces near the cave, and a few 

 flint flakes were found, but no other signs of human occupancy. 

 On the flat top of the cliff, over which the old track runs, 

 nothing was seen. The cretaceous limestone has an anticlinal 

 undulation at tbe locality of the caves, dipping W.S.W. at one 

 end, and N.E. at the other. 



In the same cove with Tristram's cave, a little to the south 

 and thirty-five feet higher in the bank, another, though 



* See appended Note. Prof. Boyd Dawkins, F.IJ.S., bas kindly under- 

 taken their more detailed examination. 



