3i8 



NA TV RE 



{August 1 6, 1877 



Other interesting illustrations of the intimate manner in which 

 physical and chemical research are linked together, and of the 

 important extent to which some of our most illustrious workers in 

 chemistry have contributed to demolish the semblance of a barrier 

 which existed in past times between the twobranches of science, are 

 furnished and suggested by the recently published List of Grants 

 of Money which the Government has made to scientific men, on 

 tlie recommendation of the Royal Society, from the fund which, 

 for the first time last year, was added to the very modest sum 

 previously accorded from national resources in support of re- 

 search. The perusal of that list, representing as it does a most 

 carefully considered selection by the highest representatives of 

 science in the country, from a very large number of applications, 

 affords important evidence, on the one hand, of the active pursuit 

 of science in Great Britain, and, on the other, of the very wide 

 range of subjects of interest and importance, the full investiga- 

 lijn of which demands the provision of adequate resources. That 

 the necessity for such resources needs but to be thoroughly made 

 known to ensure their prevision, even from other than national 

 sources, has been demonstrated by the success which, in a com- 

 paratively brief space of time, has attended the efforts of tlie 

 Chemical Society to establish, upon the foundatitwi patriotically 

 laid by one of its original members. Dr. Longstaff, a special 

 fund, to be administered by the Society for the advancement of 

 chemical science. An inspection of the list of contributors to 

 this special fund in aid of chemical research which, in about two 

 years, has reached the sum of four thousand pounds, and from 

 the proceeds of which the first applications for grants have 

 recently been met, is suggestive of two observations. One is, 

 that the proportion and amount of contributions hitherto received 

 are comi-iaraliveiy small from the source whence the greatest 

 support of such a fund may naturally be looked for, namely, from 

 those who most directly benefit by the results of chemical research. 

 It is to be hoped that there are many prominent representatives 

 of the chemical and metallurgic industries in this country who 

 still intend to give practical effect to their natural desire to 

 aid in the advancement of chemical science, and to the appre- 

 ciation which they can hardly fail to entertain of the usefulness 

 of this fund. On the other hand, it is a matter well meriting 

 special notice that a very prominent section of the contributors to 

 the fund is composed of some of the most ancient corporate 

 bodies of the city of London. Most welcome evidence is tliereby 

 afforded of the readiness with which the City Companies are 

 prepared to respond to appeals for the substantial support of 

 measures well calculated to promote progress in science. This 

 evidence, and the combined action which they are even now con- 

 templating for promoting the application of scientific research to 

 the advancement of industry and commerce, by establishing an 

 institution for technical education upon a scale worthy to serve 

 as a monument of the true usefulness of wealthy confederations, 

 must be cordially hailed as very substantial proofs that these 

 representatives of our national wealth and commercial supremacy 

 are entering upon a new sphere of activity which will more than 

 restore their ancient prestige, by according them a new rank, 

 more elevated than any which their civic importance could, in 

 the past or future, confer upon them— a rank high among the 

 chief promoters of our national enlightenment. 



SECTION C. 



Opening Address uy the President, W. Pencelly, 

 F.R.S., F.G.S. 



When, as long ago as 1S41, the British Association made its 

 only previous visit to Plymouth, some of us, now amongst its 

 oldest members, thought ourselves too young to take any part in 

 its proceedings. If the effects of that meeting are still traceable 

 in this district, it will be admitted, of course, that the seed then 

 sown was of excellent quality and that it fell on good soil. Be 

 this as it may, the hope may be cherished that thirty-six years 

 will not again be allowed to elapse between two consecutive 

 visits to the capit.->l of the two south-western counties. 



One effect of this wide hiatus is the loss of almost all the 

 human links whose presence on this occasion would have plea- 

 santly connected the present with the past. A glance at the 

 lists of Trustees and the General, Sectional, and Local officers 

 in 1841 will show that the presence of scarcely one of tliem can 

 be hoped for on this occasion ; and there is but little probability 

 that any of those who prepared Reports or Papers for the last 



Plymouth Meeting will have done so for that which is now 

 assembled. 



Nor are these the only changes. In 1841 Section C embraced, 

 as at the beginning, the geographers as well as the geologists ; 

 but ten years later the geographers were detached, whether to 

 find room for tliemselves, or to make room for the students of an 

 older geography, it is not necessary to inquire. 



Some years afterwards came an innovation which, until 

 entering on the preparation of this address, I always regarded as 

 a decided improvement. The first Presidential Address to this 

 Section was delivered at Leeds in 185S by the late Mr. Hopkins, 

 so well known to geologists for his able application of his great 

 mathematical powers to sundry important problems in their 

 science ; and from that time to the present, with the exception 

 of the Meetings of i860 and 1870 only, the President of this 

 Section has delivered an address. 



None of the local geological papers read in 1841 appear to 

 have attracted so much attention as those on Lithodomous Per- 

 forations, Raised Beaches, Submerged Forests, and Caverns (see 

 Atliena-iim for 7th to aSth of August, 1841) ; and, as an effort 

 to connect the present with the past, I have decided on taking 

 up one of these threads, and devoting the remarks I have now 

 to offer to the History of Cavern-Exploration in Devonshire. I 

 am not unmindful that there were giants in tliose days ; and no 

 one can deplore more than I do our loss of Buckland and De la 

 Beche, amongst many others ; nor can I forget the enormous 

 strides opinion has made since 1841, when, in this Section, 

 Dr. Buckland "contended that human remains had never been 

 found under such circumstances as to prove their contemporaneous 

 existence with the hytenas and bears of the caverns," and added 

 that "in Kent's Hole the Celtic knives. . . . w-ere found in 

 holes dug by art, and which had disturbed tlie floor of the cave 

 and the bones below it" (AtkenuUiii, 14th Aug. 1S41, p. 626). 

 This scepticism, however, did the good service of inducing 

 cavern explorers to conduct their researches with an accuracy 

 which should place their results, whatever they might prove to 

 be, amongst tlie undoubted additions to human knowledge. 



The principal caverns in South Devon occur in the limestone 

 districts of Plymouth, Vealmpton, Brixham, Torquay, Buck- 

 fastleigh, and Chudleigh ; but as those in the last two localities 

 have yielded nothing of importance to the anthropologist or the 

 palaeontologist, they will not be further noticed on this occasion. 

 In dealing with the others it seems most simple to follow mainly 

 the order of chronology ; that is to say, to commence with the 

 cavern which first caught scientific attention, and, having 

 finished all that the time at my disposal will allow me to say 

 about it, but not before, to proceed to the next, in the order thus 

 defined ; and so on through the series. 



OrestoH Cavei-iis. — When Mr.Whidbeyengaged to superintend 

 the construction of the Plymouth Breakwater, Sir Joseph Banks, 

 President of the Royal Society, requested him to examine nar- 

 rowly any caverns he might meet with in the limestone-rock to 

 be quarried at Oreston, near the mouth of tlie river Plym, not 

 more than two miles from the room in which we are assembled, 

 and have the bones or any other fossil remains that were met 

 with carefully preserved (see P/iil. Trans., 1S17, pp. 176 — 182). 

 This request was cheerfully complied with, and Mr. Whidbey 

 had the pleasure of discovering bone-caves in November, 1816, 

 November, 1S20, August and November, 1S22, and of sending 

 the remains found in them to the Royal Society. 



It is, perhaps, worthy of remark that, though cavern-re- 

 searches received a great impulse from the discoveries in Kirk- 

 dale, Yorkshire, and especially from Dr. Buckland's well-known 

 and graphic descriptions of them, such researches had originated 

 many years before. The request by Sir Joseph Banks was made 

 at least as early as 1S12 (see Trans. Devon. Assoc, v., pp. 252, 

 253), and a paper on the Oreston discoveries was read to the 

 Royal Society in February 1S17, whereas the Kirkdale Cavern 

 was not discovered until 1S21. British cave-hunting appears to 

 have been a science of Devonshire birth. 



The Oreston Caverns soon attracted a considerable number of 

 able observers ; they were visited in 1S22 by Dr. Buckland and 

 Mr. Warburton ; and in a comparatively short time became the 

 theme of a somewhat voluminous literature. Nothing of im- 

 portance, however, seems to have been met with fiom 1822 

 until 1S58, when another cavern, containing a lar^je number of 

 bones, was broken into. Unfortunately, there was no one at 

 hand to superintend the exhumation of the specimens ; the work 

 was left entirely to the common workmen, and was badly done ; 

 many of the remains were dispersed beyond recovery ; the 

 matrix in which they were buried was never adequately examined ; 



