Sept. 27, 1883] 



NA TURE 



527 



il, Dr. Carpenter's paragraph would produce on the mind of the 

 reader a very different effect to that likely, and no doubt 

 intended, to be produced by the mutilated version of it given in 

 the pamphlet. 



A second edition of the pamphlet has been given to the world. 

 Dr. Carpenter is still in the presidential chair of the Royal 

 Academy, and the quotation from his address is as conveniently 

 short as before. 



It would lie easy to bring together a large number of similar 

 modes of " defending the cause of truth " — to use the words of 

 the pamphlet just noticed — but space and time forbid. 



I cannot, however, forego the pleasure of introducing the 

 following recent and probably novel explanation of cavern phe- 

 nomena. In 1882 my attention was directed to two articles, by 

 one and the same writer, on " Bone-Cave Phenomena." The 

 writer's theme was professedly the Victoria Cave, near Settle, 

 Yorkshire, which he says was an old Roman lead mine, but his 

 remarks are intended to apply to bone-caves in general. He 

 takes a very early opportunity in the second article of stating 

 that " We shall have to take care to distinguish between what is 

 truly indicated in the 'science 1 view from what are purely 

 imaginary exaggerations of its natural and historical pheno- 

 mena " ; and he no doubt believes that he has taken this care. 



" We have now," he says, " to present our own view of the 

 Victoria Cave and the phenomena connected with it, premising 

 that a great many of the old mines in Europe were opened by 

 Phoenician colonists and metal workers, a thousand years before 

 the Romans had set foot in Britain, which accounts for the 

 various floors of stalagmite found in most caves, and al o for the 

 variety of groups of bones embedded in them. The animals 

 represented by tbem w hen living were not running wild about 

 the hills devouring each other, as science men suppose, but the 

 useful auxiliaries and trained drudges of the miners in their 

 work. Some of them, as the bear, had simply been hunted and 

 used for food, and others of a fierce character, as the hyrena, to 

 frighten and keep in awe the native Britons. The larger species 

 of mammalia, as the elephant, the rhinoceros and hippopotamus, 

 and beasts foreign to the country, the Romans, no less than the 

 Phoenicians, had every facility in bringing with them in their 

 ships of commerce from Carthage, or other of the African ports. 

 These, with the native horse, ox, and stag, which are always 

 found in larger numbers in the caves than the remains of foreign 

 animals, all wori ed peacefully together in the various operations 

 of the mines. . . . The hippopo'amus, although amphibious, is 

 a grand beast for heavy work, such as mining, quarrying, or 

 road-making, and his keeper would take care that he was com- 

 fortably lodged in a tank of water during the night. . . . The 

 phenomena of the Victoria Cave Lead Mine differ in no material 

 respect from those of nun ireds of others, whether of lead, copper, 

 silver, or iron, worked in Roman and pre-Roman times in all 

 parts of Europe. Its tunnels have all been regularly quarried 

 and mined, not by ancitnt seas, but by the hands of his oric man. 

 Double openings have been made in every case for convenient 

 ingress and egress, during the process of excavation. Its road- 

 ways had been levelled, and holes made up with breccia, gravel, 

 sand, and bones of beasts that had succumbed to toil, on which 

 sledges, trolleys, atnd waggons could glide or run. . . . Near 

 the entrance inside Victoria Cave were found the usuil beds 

 of charcoal and the hearths for refining the metal, while cl »e by 

 on the hillside may still be seen the old kilns in which the men 

 ' roasted ' the metallic ores and burned lime." 



Should any one be disposed to ascribe these articles to some 

 master of the art of joking, it need only be replied that they 

 appeared in a religious journal ( The Champion of the Faith 

 against Current Infidelity for April 20, and May II, 1882. vol. i. 

 pp. 5 and 26), with the writer's name appended ; and that 

 I have reason to believe they were written seriously and in 

 earnest. 



It has been already intimated that Brixham Cavern has secured 

 a somewhat prominent place in literature; and it can carcely 

 l>e needful to add that some of the printed statements respecting 

 it are not quite correct. The following instances of inaccuracy 

 may be taken as samples : — 



The late Prof . Ansted, describing Brixham Cavern in 1S61, 

 said, " In the middle of the cavern, under stalagmite itself, and 

 actually entangled with an antler of a reindeer and the bones of 

 the great cavern bear, were found rude sculptured flint-, such as 

 are known 10 have been used by savages in most parts of the 

 world" ("Geological Gossip," p. 209). 



To be "entangled" with one another, the antler, the bones of 

 the cave bear, and the flints must have been all lying together 



As a matter of fact, however, the antler was on the upper sur- 

 face of the sheet of stalagmite, while all the relics of the cave 

 bear and all the flints were in detrital beds below that sheet. 

 Again, the flints nearest the bear's bones in question were two 

 in number ; they were twelve feet s iuth of the bones, and fifteen 

 inches less deep in the bed. There was no approach to 

 entanglement. 



Should it be suggested that it is scarcely necessary to correct 

 errors on scientific questions in works, like "Geological Gossip," 

 professedly popular and intended for the million, I should ven- 

 ture to express the opinion that the strictest accuracy is specially 

 required in such books, as the great majority of their readers are 

 entirely at the mercy of the compilers. Those who read scien- 

 tific books of a higher class are much more capable of taking 

 care of themselves. 



Prof. Ansted's slip found its way into a scientific journal, 

 where it was made the basis of a speculation (see Geologist, 1861, 

 p. 246). 



The most recent noteworthy inaccjracies connected with this 

 famous cavern are, so far as I am aware, two in the Eugli-h 

 edition of Prof. N. Joly's " Man before Metals" (1883I. 



According to the first, " An entire left hind leg of Ursus 

 spclinis was found lying above the incrustation of stalagmite 

 which cwered the bones of other extinct species and the carved 

 flints" (p. 52). 



It is o dy necessary in reply to this to repeat what has been 

 already stated : aH the bones of cave-bear found in the cavern 

 were in beds belou, the stalagmite. 



The following quotation from the sa re work contains the 

 second inaccuracy, or, more correctly, group of inaccuracies, 

 mentioned above : " We may mention among others the cive at 

 Brixham, where, associated with fragments of rude pottery and 

 bones of extinct species, heaps of oyster shells and other salt- 

 water mollusks occur, as well as fish-bones of the genus scams" 

 (p. 104). 



lam afraid there is no way of dealing with this paragraph 

 except that of meeting all its statements with unqualified deni lis. 

 In short, Brixham Windmill Hill Cavern contained no pottery of 

 any kind whatever, not a single oyster-shell, nor even a solitary 

 bone of any species of fish. One common limpet shell wrs the 

 only relic of a marine organism met with in the cavern. 



As already intimated, the result of the rrsearches at Brixham 

 quickened a de-ire to re-examine the Kent's Cavern evidence, 

 and this received a considerable stimulus from the publicat : on of 

 Sir C. Lyell's "Antiquity of Man" in 1S63. Having in the 

 meantime made a careful survey of the cavern, and ascertained 

 that there was a very large area in which the deposits v ere 

 certainly intact, to say nothing of unsuspected branches which in 

 all probability would be discovertd during a thorough and syste- 

 rnat c exploration, I had arrived at the conclusion that, taking 

 the cavern at its known dimensions merely, the cost of an 

 investigation as complete as that at Brixham would not be less 

 than 1000/. 



Early in 1864 I suggested to Sir C. Lyell that an application 

 shou'd be made to the British Association, during the meeting to 

 be held at Bath that year, for the a ip untment of a Committee, 

 with a grant of money, to make an exploration of Kent's Cavern ; 

 and it was decided that I should lake the necessary steps in the 

 matter. The proposal being cordially r< ceived by the Committee 

 of the Geological Section, and well supported in the Committee 

 of Recommendations, a Committee — consisting of Sir C. lyell, 

 Mr. I. Evan-, Mr. (now Sir) J. Lubbock, Prof. J. Phillips, Mr. 

 E. Vivian, and myself (Hon. Secretary and Reporter) — was 

 appointed, with too/, placed at their disposal. Mr. G. Busk 

 was added to the Committee in 1866, Mr. W. Boyd Dawkins in 

 1868, Mr. W. Ayshford Sanford in 1869, and Mr. J. E. Lee in 

 1S73. The late Sir L. Palk (afterwards Lord Haldon), the 

 proprietor, placed the cavern entirely under the control of the 

 Committee during the continuance of the work ; the investiga- 

 tion was be^un on March 28, 1865, and continued without inter- 

 mi-sion to June 19, 1880, the Committee being annually reap- 

 pointed with fresh grants of money, which in the aggregrate 

 amounted to 19C0/. , besides 63/. received from various private 

 sources. 



The mode of exploration was essentially the same as that fol- 

 lowed at Windmill Hill, Brixham, but as Kent's Cavtrn, instead 

 of being a series of narrow galleries, contained a considerable 

 number of capacious chambers, and as the aim of the explorers 

 was to ascertain not merely what objects the deposits contained, 

 but their exact position, their distribution, their condition, their 

 collocation, and their relative abundance, the details hid to be 



