528 



NATURE 



[Sept. 27, 1,883 



considerably more elaborate, while they remained so perfectly 

 simple that the workmen had not the least difficulty in cirrying 

 them out under my daily superintendence. The process being 

 fully described in the First Annual Report by the Committee 

 (see Report, B/i: Assoc. 1865, pp. 19, 20), it is unnecessary to 

 repeat it hire. 



Mr. Godwin- Austen, -while agreeing with Mr. MacEnery that 

 Hint implements occurred under the stalagmite, contended that 

 they were found throughout the entire thickness of the cave 

 earth. MacEnery, on the other hand, was of opinion that in 

 most cases their situation was intermediate between the bottom 

 of the stalagmite and the upper surface of the cave earth ; and, 

 while admitting that occasionally, though rarely, they had been 

 met with somewhat lower, he stated that the greatest depth to 

 which he had been able to trace them w: s not more than a few- 

 inches below the surface of the cave earth (Trans. Devon. Assoc. 

 di. 326-327). The Committee soon found themselves in a posi- 

 tion to confirm Mr. Godwin-Austen's statement, and to say 

 with him that " no distinction founded on conditi >n, distribu- 

 tion, or relative position can be observed whereby the human 

 can be separated from the other rcliquire " (Trans. Geo!. Soc. 

 2nd ser. vi. 444). 



Mr. MacEnery's " Plate F " contains seven figures of three 

 remarkable canine teeth, and the following statement respecting 

 them : — " Teeth of Ursus cultrid its, found in the cave of Kent's 

 Hole, near Torquay, Devon, by Rev. Mr. McEnery, January, 

 1S26, in Diluvial Mud mix'd with Teeth and Gnaw'd bones of 

 Rhinoceros, Ele hant, Horse, Ox, F.Ik, and Deer, with Tetth 

 aid Bones of Hyaenas, Bears, Wolve--, Foxes, &c " 



It is worthy of note that no other plate in the entire series 

 names the date on which the s, ecimens were found, or the 

 mammals with whose remains they were commingled. This 

 arose probably from the fact, well known t > MacEnery, that no 

 such specimens had been found elsewhere in Britain; and 

 possibly also to emphasise the statements in his text, should any 

 doubt be throw 11 on liis discovery. 



It is, no doubt, unnecessary to >ayhere that the teeth belonged 

 to a large spec es of carnivore to which, in 1S46, I'rof. Owen 

 gave the name of Machairodiis latidens. MacEnery >tife- that 

 the total number of teeth he found were five upper canines and 

 one incisor, and the six museums in which they are now lodged 

 are well know . 



A considerable amount of scepticism existed for many years 

 in some minds as to whether the relics just mentioned were 

 really found in Kent's Cavern, it bein^ contended that from its 

 zoological affinities Machairodiis latidens must have b. longed to 

 an earlier fauna than that represented by the ordinary cave 

 mammaN ; an l various hypotheses were invented to explain 

 away the difficulty, most of them, at least, being more ingenious 

 than ingenuous. Be this as it may, it was naturally hoped that 

 the re-exploration of the cavern would set the question at rest 

 for ever ; and it was not without a feeling of disappointment 

 that I had to write seven successive annual reports without 

 l>eing able to announce the discovery of a single relic of 

 Machairodiis. Indeed, the greater part of the Eighth Report 

 was written with no better prospect ; when, while engaged in 

 washing a "find" met with on July 29, 1872, I found that it 

 c insisted of a well-marked incisor of Machairodiis latidms, with 

 a left ramus of lower jaw of bear, in which was one molar 

 tooth. They were lying together in the first or uppermost foot- 

 level of cave earth, having over it a continuous sheet of granular 

 stalagmite 25 feet thick. There was no longer any doubt ot 

 MacEnery's accuracy ; no doubt that Machairodiis latidens wa 

 a member of the cave earth fauna, whatever the zoological 

 affinities might say to the contrary; nor was there any doubt 

 that man and Machairodiis were contemporaries in Devonshiic. 



I cannot pa s from this case without directing attention to its 

 bearing on negative evidence: had the exploration ceased on 

 July 28, 1872 — the day before the discovery — those who had 

 . I ways declined to believe that Machairodiis had ever been found 

 1 1 the cavern would have been able to urge, as an additional 

 a id apparently conclusive argument, that the consecutive, 

 systematic, and careful daily labour of seven years and four 

 ■ lonths had failed to show that their scepticism was unwarranted. 

 Nay, more, had the incisor been overlooked — and, being but a 

 mall object, this might very ea-ily have occurred — they might 

 finally have ;aid " 15 25 years' labour" ; for, so far as is known, 



00 other relic of the species was met with during the entire 

 investigation. In all probability had either of these by no 



leans improbable hypotheses occurred, geologists and pake into- 



1 'gists generally we u'd have joined the sceptics; MacEnery's 



reputation would have been held in very light esteem ; and — to 

 say the least — his re-earches regarded with suspicion. 



When their exploration began, and for soaie time after, the 

 Committee had no reason t > believe or to suspect that the 

 cavern contained anything older than the cive cuth; but at 

 the end of five months, facts, pointing apparently to earlier 

 deposit-, began to present themselves; and, at intervals more or 

 less protracted, additional phenomena, requiring apparently the 

 same interpretation, were observed and recorded ; but it was 

 not until the end of three full years that a vertical section was 

 cut, showing, in undisturbed and clear succe-si m, n t only the 

 cave earth with the granular stal 'gmite lying on it, but, under 

 and supporting the cave earth, another, thicker, and continuous 

 sheet of .-talagmite— appropriately termed crystalline, and below 

 this again an older detrital accumulation, known as the breccia, 

 made up of materials uferly unlike those of the cave earth. 



The breccia was just as rich a- the cave earth in osseous re- 

 mains ; but the li-ts of species represented by the two deposits 

 were very different. It will be sufficient to state here that, while 

 remains of the hyaena prevailed numerically very far above th>?e 

 of any other mammal in the cave earth, and while his presence 

 there was also attested by his teeth-marks on a vast number of 

 bones, by lower jaws — includ ng those of his own kith and kin 

 — of which he had eaten off the lower borders as well as the 

 condyles, by long bones broken obliquely just as hyaenas of the 

 present day break them, and by surprising quantities of his 

 coprolites, there was not a -ingle indication of any kind of his 

 presence in the breccia, where the crowd of boues and teeth 

 belonged almoi-t entirely to bears. 



No trace of the exigence of man was found in the breccia 

 until March, 1S69, that is about twelve months after the dis- 

 c tvery of the dep > it itself when a flint flake was met with in 

 the third foot-level, and was believed to be not only a tool, but 

 to hear evidence of having been used as such (see Report Brit. 

 Assoc. 1869, pp. 201, 202). Two massive flint implements were 

 discovered in the same depo i' in May, 1872, and at various 

 subsequent times other tools were found, until at the close of the 

 exploration the breccia had yielded upwards of seventy imple- 

 ments of flint and chert. 



While all the stone tools of both the cave earth and the 

 breccia were Palaeolithic and were found inosculating with re- 

 mains of extinct mammals, a mere inspection shows that they 

 bel .ng t) two distinct categories. Those found in the brecia — 

 that is, the m re ancient series — were formed by chipping a flint 

 nodule or pebble into a tool, while th ise from the cave earth — 

 the less ancient se> ies — were fa-hio oed by first detaching a suit- 

 able flake from the nodule or pebble, and then trimming the 

 flake — njt the nodule — into a tool. 



It must be unnecessary to say that the making of nodule tools 

 necessitated the production of flakes and chips, some of which 

 were no doubt utilised. Such flakes, however, must be 

 regarded as accidents, and not the final objects the workers had 

 in view. 



It is worthy of remark that in one part of the cavern, upwards 

 of 130 feet in length, the excavation was carried to a depth of 

 nine feet, instead of the usual four feet, below the bottom of the 

 stalagmite ; and that, while no bone of any kind occurred in the 

 breccia below the seventh foot-level, three fine flint nodule tools 

 were found in the eighth, and several flint chips in the ninth, or 

 lowest foot-level. 



It may be added that the same fact presented itself in the 

 lowest or corresponding bed in Brixham Windmill Hill Cavern. 

 In short, in each of the two famous Devonshire caverns, the 

 archaeological zone reached a lower level than the palaeonto- 

 logical. 



That the breccia is of higher antiquity than the cave earth is 

 proved by the unquestionable evidence of clear undisturbed 

 superposition ; that they represent two distinct chapters and eras 

 in the cavern history is shown by the decided dissimilarity of the 

 n.aterials composing them, the marked difference in the osseous 

 remains they contained, and the strongly contrasted characters 

 of the stone implements they yielded ; and that they were sepa- 

 rated by a wide interval of lime may be safely inferred from the 

 thickness of the bed of stalagmite between them. 



It is probable, however, that the fact most significant of time 

 and physical change is the presence of the hyaena in the cave 

 earth or less ancient, but not in the breccia or more ancient, of 

 the two deposits. I called attention to this fact in a paper read 

 to this Department ten years ago (see Report Brit. Assoc. 1873, 

 pp. 209-214), and at greater length elsewhere in 1875 (see Trans, 

 i'l) w. fust. v. 360-375). Bearing in mind the cave-haunt. ng 



