532 



NATURE 



{Oct. 29, 1874 



numerous bones and fragments of bone, of which some were 

 gnawed, and a few appear to have been burnt. CoprolUes were 

 very abundant, 69 distinct " finds " having been met with during 

 tlie twelvemonth. They sometimes, though rarely, consisted of 

 a solitary ball, whilst at others upwards of 20 were lying to- 

 gether and not unfrequently cemented into large lumps. Occa- 

 sionally the amount of matter of this kind found in a single day 

 was sufficient to fill a large basket. 



Fifteen specimens of flint and chert were also met with in the 

 cave earth, 6 of them occurring in the Cave of Inscriptions, 5 in 

 Underhay's Gallery, 2 in the Long Arcade, and 2 in Clinnick's 

 Gallery. The finest of the series is No. 6324, found December 

 30, 1S73, in the second foot-level, beneath the floor of granular 

 stalagmite from 2 to 2'5 feet thick. It is a very symmetrical 

 tongue-shaped tool, fashioned with much labour out of a cliert 

 nodule, and worked to an edge all round the perimeter except at 

 tlie butt end, where portions of the original surface remain on 

 both faces. It is 3'S inches long, 23 inches in greatest breadth, 

 I '5 in greatest thickness, and convex on both faces, from each of 

 which several flakes have been struck. Though fashioned out 

 of a nodule, which is very rarely the case amongst the cave-earth 

 implements, its symmetrical form and comparatively high finish 

 are highly characteristic ol the era to which it belongs. 



No object of interest of any kind has been found in the Crys- 

 talline Stalagmitic Floor during the year ; but the Breccia lying 

 beneath it has been by no means unproductive. In this oldest 

 of the cavern deposits the remains have been, as heretofore, 

 exclusively those of bear, so far at least as is at present kno'A'n, 

 and in addition to a large number of bones, including a con- 

 siderable portion of a slvull, 441 teeth have bjen met with in 

 it, of which 149 were in the Long Arcade, 115 in Underhay's 

 Gallery, 91 in the Cave of Inscriptions, and 86 in Clinnick's 

 Gallery. 



Twentys-six peciraens of flint and chert have also been found 

 in this deposit, of which 10 occurred in the Long Arcade, 6 in 

 Clinnick's Gallery, 5 in Underhay's Gallery, and f in the Cave 

 of Inscriptions. 



The finest of the series (No. ai'n) and indeed one of the finest 

 the cavern has yielded from thj commencement, was found 

 April 23, 1S74, in the fourth o^ lowest foot-level, with i tooth 

 ol bear, fr.tgments of bone, and a small chert flake (No. ct^i j) 

 which had probably been rolled. It measures 4*5 inches in length, 3 

 inches in greatest breadth, i 'i inch in greatest thickness, is very 

 convex on one face, slightly so on the other, re.ains a portion of 

 the original surface near the butt end, and is rudely quadrilateral 

 in form, with the angles roundel off Several flakes have been 

 struck off each face, and the edge to which it has been reduced 

 along its entire margin, except at the butt end, is l:>y no means 

 sharp ; its surface is almost completely covered with an almost 

 black, probably manganesic smut, whilst a slight chip near the 

 pointed end shows it to consist of a very light-coloured granular 

 chert. Several lines betokening planes, probably of structural 

 weakness or perhaps of fracture, entirely surround it. If it has 

 really been fractured, it must have occurred where the tool was 

 found, and the parts have been naturally reunited without 

 being faulted, lis character as well as its position shows that 

 this fine implement belonged to the era of the Breccia. 



This specimen is of considerable interest, both on account of 

 the lines which cross its surface and of the position it occupied. 



Amongst the flint implements found in Brixham Cavern 

 that known as No. 6 — 8 has attracted considerable attention, 

 and has been described and figured by Mr. John Evans, both in 

 his " Ancient Stone Implements" and in the " Report on the 

 Exploration of Brixham Care." It was found in two pieces, the 

 first on the 12th of August, 1S5S, the second, 40 feet from it, on 

 the 9th of the following September ; and it was not until some 

 time after the latter date that the late Dr. Falconer discovered 

 that the two fragments fitted each other, and when united formed 

 a massive spear-shaped implement. The lines on the Kent's 

 Cavern specimen just described show that it had either been 

 fractured where it was found, or, what seems more probable, that 

 it is traversed by planes of structural weakness, such that a slight 

 blow would break it into two or more pieces, which a stream of 

 water would easily remove and probably separate, and thus pro- 

 duce a repetition of the Brixham case. 



The Kent's Cavern tool was found in a small recess in the 

 wall, just within the outer or wider entrance of Clinnick's Gal- 

 lery, within a very few feet of the Inscribed Boss of Stalagmite, 

 and, as has already been stated, in the fourth foot-level of the 

 lireccia ; that is, at the greatest depth in the oldest of the cavern 

 deposits to which the present exploration has been carried, and 



is thus wonderfully' calculated to take the mind step by step 

 back into antiquity. 



First, very near the spot occupied by the specimen, there rises 

 a vast cone of stalagmite, which an inscription on its surface shows 

 has undergone no appreciable augmentation of volume during 

 the last two-and-a-half centuries. 



Second, prior to that was the period spent in raising the 

 greater portion Of this cone, which measures upwards of 40 feet 

 in basal girth, reaches a height of fully 13 feet, and contains 

 more than 600 cubic feet of stalagmitic m.atter. 



Third, still earlier was the era during which the cave earth 

 was introduced, in a series of successive small instalments with 

 protracted periods of intermittence, when the cavern was alter- 

 nately the home of man and of the cave hynena, and the latter 

 dragged thither piecemeal so many portions of extinct mammals 

 as to convert the cave into a crowded pakeontological museum. 



Fourth, further back still, was the period during which the 

 base or nucleus of the cone or boss was laid down in the form of 

 crystalline stalagmite. 



Fifth, and earliest of all, was the time when materials not 

 derivable from the immediate district were carried into the 

 cavern, through openings now probably choked up, entirely 

 unknown, and the direction in which they lie but roughly 

 guessed at, when apparently the cavern-haunting hyfena had not 

 yet arrived in Britain. At an early stage in this earliest era 

 man occupied Devonshire ; for prior to the introduction of the 

 uppermost four feet of brec.ia, one of his massive unpolished 

 tools, rudely chipped out of a nodule of chert, found its way 

 into a recess in the cavern, and having a character such as to 

 show that it must have lain undisturbed in the same spot until 

 it was detected by a committee of the British Association. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 



Tn'E.yournal of the Chemical Society iax September contains the 

 following papers communicated to the Society :— On the products 

 of the decomposition of castor oil. No. 3. On the decomposition 

 by excess of alkaline hydrate, by E. Nelson. The action of sodium 

 hydrate mixed with water gives rise to the formation of a mix- 

 ture of an alcohol and a ketone on distillation. The alcohol is 

 an octylic alcohol, which the author regards as the secondary 



CH, 



The ketone is methyl- 



alcoholmethyl-hexyl carbinol H N jr 



( OH 



hexyl ketone. The olefine derived from the alcohol has been 

 examined. Tlie supposed heptylic alcohols of Stadeler and 

 Petersen turn out to be a mixture of octylic alcohol with methyl- 

 hexyl ketone. — On the action of nitrosyl-chloride on organic 

 bodies. Part I. On phenol, by Dr. W. A. Tilden, The phenol 

 is oxidised to quinone, which substance is then converted into 

 chloramil, the nitrosyl-chloride being completely reduced — a 

 certain amount to ammonium chloride. — Aniline and its homo- 

 logues, &c., in coal-tar oils, by Watson Smith. — On the action of 

 chlorine, bromine, &c., upon isodinaphthyl, by Watson Smith 

 and James M. Poynting. The action of chlorine gives rise to 

 the formation of a tetiMchlorinated derivative, C^yHjuClj. Bro- 

 mine replaces seven atoms of hydrogen, giving rise to the com- 

 pound CjdHyBr-. With concentrated sulphuric acid a conjugate 

 acid is formed, of which the barium and sodium salts have been 

 examined. Both the chlorinated and brominated derivatives are 

 amorphous powders. — On hydrogen persulphide, by William 

 Ramsay. The persulphide was prepared by first saturating alcohol 

 with ammonia gas, and then passing sulphuretted hydrogen through 

 the solution. The ammonium sulphide thus produced was 

 shaken up with sulphur and a solution of strychnine in alcohol 

 added. White ciystals having the formula CjiH.j.^NoO.jHjSj 

 separate out on standing. These crystals treated with sulphuric 

 acid yield hydrogen persulphide in the form of oily globules, but 

 the yield is small, and the separation from the sulphuric acid 

 extremely difficult. The author finally adopts the old method 

 of pouring calcium persulphide into hydrochloric acid. Ana- 

 lyses of the compound thus obtained gave results indicating a 

 formula between ILS7 and HjSju. The properties of the per- 

 sulphide have been examined in some detail. — The journal con- 

 tains its usual valuable collection of abstracts. 



Geological Magazine, Oct. 1S74. — The original articles con- 

 tained in this number are (i) a continuation of Mr. Lechmere 

 Gupp's article on West Indian Tertiary Fossils j (2) Notes on 



