Sept. 27, 1883] 



NA TURE 



525 



He added, "It is painful to dissent from so high an authority, 

 and more particularly so from my concurrence generally in his 

 views of the phenomena of these caves, which three years' 

 personal observation has in almost every instance enabled me to 

 verify" (Ibid. p. 338). 



It is, perhaps, not surprising that Dr. Buckland, one of the 

 leading geologists of his day, should be too tenacious of his 

 opinion, and feel too secure in his position to yield to the state- 

 ments and arguments of his comparatively young friend MacEnery, 

 then scarcely known to the scientific world. 



That the position taken by Buckland retarded the progress of 

 truth, and was calculated to check the ardour of research, is 

 apparently certain, and much to be regretted ; but it should be 

 remembered that, at least, as early as 1S19 he taught that "the 

 two great points ... of the low antiquity of the human race, 

 and the universality of a recent deluge, are most satisfac orily 

 confirmed by everything that has yet been brought to li^ht by 

 geological investigations" (" Vindicise Geologicse,'' p. 24) ; that 

 early in 1822 he reiterated and emphasised these opinions in his 

 famous Kirkdale paper (Phil. Trans, lor 1822, pp. 171-236), 

 which the Royal Society "crowned with the Copley medal" 

 (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xiii. p. xxxiii.); that in 1823, 

 having amplified and revised this paper, he published it as an 

 independent quarto volume under the attractive title of "Reliquiae 

 Diluvianre," of which he issued a second edi'ion in 1S24; and 

 that, though his acquaintance with Kent's Cavern was much less 

 intimate than that of MacEnery, he, nevertheless, was, of the 

 two, the earlier worker there, and in fact had di covered a flint 

 implement in it before MacEnery had ever seen that or any 

 other cavern— the fir-ttool of the kind found in any cavern, it is 

 believed, and which in all probability was met * ith under cir- 

 cumstances not in conflict n ith his published opinion on the low 

 antiquity of man. 1 confess that under such circumstances, 

 human nature being what it is, the line followed by Dr. Buckland 

 seems to me to have been that which mo t men would have 

 pursued. 



It was, at any rate, the line to which he adhered as late, at 

 least, as 1837, for in his well-known " Bridgewater Treatise," pub- 

 lished that year, after describing his visit to the caverns near 

 Liege, famous through the di-coveries of Dr. Schmerling, he 

 said, " The human nones found in these caverns are in a state of 

 less decay than those of the extinct species of beasts ; they are 

 accompanied by rude flint knives and other instruments of flint 

 and bone, and are probably derived from uncivilised tribes that 

 inhabited the caves. Some of the human bones may also be the 

 remains of individuals who, in more recent times, have been 

 buried in such convenient repositories. M. Schmerling . . . 

 expresses his opinion that these human bones are coeval with 

 those of the quadrupeds, of extinct species, found with them ; 

 an opinion from which the author, after a careful examination of 

 M. Schmerling's collection, entirely dissents" (op. cit. i. 602). 



It may be doubted, however, whether his faith in these, his 

 early, convictions remained unshaken to the end. I have fre- 

 quently been told by one of his contemporary professors at 

 Oxford, who knew him intimately, that Buckland shrank from 

 the task of preparing for the press new editions of his " Reliquiae 

 Diluvhnae " and his " Bridgewater Treatise." " The work," he 

 said, "would be not editing, but re-writing." 



Mr. MacEnery intended to publish his "Cavern Researches" 

 in one volume quarto, illustrated with thirty plates. In what 

 appears to have been his second prospectus, unfortunately not 

 dated, he said, "The liiLited circulation of works of this nature, 

 being by no means equal to the expenses attendant on the 

 execution of so large a series" [of plates], "theaulhor is obliged 

 to depart from his original plan, and to solicit the support of 

 those who may feel an interest in the result of his researches." 



There i.^ reason to believe that at least twenty-one of the 

 p.ates were ready, and that the rough copy of much of his 

 manuscript was » ritten ; but that, the support he solicited not 

 being forthcoming, the idea of publishing had to be abandoned 

 (see Trans. Devon. Assoc, iii. 198-201). 



In 1840 Mr. R. A. C. Austen (now Godwin-Austen), F.G S., 

 read to the Geological Society of London a paper on the Bone 

 Caves of Devonshire, which, with some amplifications, was 

 incorporated in his memoir on the geology of the south-east of 

 Devonshire, printed in the Transactions of the Society in 1S42 

 (2nd ser. vi. 433-489). Speaking of his own researches in 

 Kent's Cavern he said, " Human remains and works of art, 

 such as arrow-heads and knives of flint, occur in all parts of the 

 cave and throughout the entire thickness of the clay : and no 

 ilistinetion founded on condition, distribution, or relative posi- 



tion can be observed whereby the human can be separated from 

 the other reliquiae " (Ibid. p. 444). 



He added, "My own researches were constantly conducted in 

 parts of the cave which had never been disturbed, and in every 

 instance the bones were procured f om beneath a thick covering 

 of stalagmite ; so far, then, the bones and works of man must 

 have been introduced into the cave before the flooring of stalag- 

 mite had been formed " (Ibid. p. 446). 



Though these important and emphatic statements were so 

 fortunate as t > be committed to the safe keeping of print with 

 but little delay, and under the most favourable circumstances, 

 they appear neither to have excited any interest, nor indeed to 

 have received much, if any, attention. 



In 1846, the Torquay Natural History Society appointed a 

 Committee, consisting of Dr. Battersby, Mr. Vivian, and myself 

 — all tolerably familiar with the statements of Mr. MacEnery 

 and Mr. Austen — to make a few diggings in Kent's Cavern for 

 the purpose of obtaining specimens f>r their mueum. The 

 work, though more or less desultory and unsystematic, was by 

 no means carelessly done, and the Committee were unanimously 

 and perfectly satisfied that the objects they met with had been 

 deposited at the same time as the matrix in which they were 

 inhumed. At the close of their investigation they drew up a 

 report which was printed in the Torquay Directory for November 

 6, 1846 (see Trans. Devon. Assoc, x. 162). Its substance, em- 

 bodied in a paper by Mr. Vivian, was read to the Geological 

 Society of London on May 12, 1S47, as well as to the British 

 Association in the succeeding June, and the following abstract 

 was printed in the Report of the Association for that year 



(P- 73) =- 



" Ihe important point that we have established is, that relics 

 of human art are found beneath the unbroken floor of stalagmite. 

 After taking every precaution, by sweeping the surface, and 

 examining most minutely whether there were any 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 spot where the 

 most highly finished specimen was found, the passage was s 1 

 low that it was extremely difficult, with quarrymen's tools and 

 good workmen, to break through the crust ; and the supposition 

 that it had been previously disturbed is impossible." 



It will be borne in mind that the same paper was read the 

 month before to the Geological Society. The Council of that 

 body, being apparently unprepared to print in their Quzr/crly 

 yournal the statements it contained, contented them c elves with 

 the following notice, given here in its entirety (op. cit. iii. 



353) =— 



" On Kent's Cavern, near Torquay," by Mr. Edward Vivian. — 

 " In this paper an account was given of some recent researches 

 in that cavern by a committee of the Torquay Natural History 

 Society, during which the bones of various extinct species of 

 animals were found in several situations." 



It will be observed that the "flint knives" were utterly ig- 

 nored, a fact rendered the more significant by the following 

 announcement on the wrapper of the journal : — "The Editor of 

 the Quarterly Journal is directed to make it known to the 

 public that the authors alone are responsible for the facts and 

 opinions contained in their respective papers." 



Such, briefly, were the principal researches in Kent's Cavern, 

 at intervals from 1825 to 1847. Their reception was by no 

 means encouraging : Mr. MacEnery, after incurring very con- 

 siderable expense, was under the necessity of abandoning the 

 intention of publishing his " Cavern Researches ; " Mr. Austen's 

 paper, though printed unabridged, was given to an apathetic, 

 unbelieving world, and was apparently without effect ; and Mr. 

 Vivian's paper, virtually the report by a committee of which he 

 was a member, was cut down to four lines of a harmless, unex- 

 citing character. 



For some years nothing occurred to break the quietude, which 

 but for an unexpected discovery on the southern shore of Torbay 

 would probably have remained to this day. 



Early in 1858 the workmen engaged in a limestone quarry on 

 Windmill Hill, overhanging the fishing town of Brixham in 

 South Devon, broke unexpectedly a hole through what proved 

 to be the roof of an unknown and unsuspected cavern. I visited 

 it very soon after the discovery, and secured to myself the re- 

 fusal of a lease to include the right of exploration. As the 

 story of this cavern has been told at some length elsewhere 

 (see Phil. Trans, clxiii. 471-572 ; or Trans. Devon. Assoc, vi. 

 775-856). it will here suffice to say that at the instance of the 

 late Dr. H. Falconer, the eminent palaeontologist, the subject 



