556 REPORT— 1883. 
scientific questions in works,, like Geological Gossip, professedly popular and 
intended for the million, I should venture 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 scientific books of a 
higher class are much more capable of taking care of themselves. 
Professor 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 inaccuracies connected with this famous Cavern 
are, so far as I am aware, two in the English edition of Professor N. Joly’s Man 
Before Metals (1883). 
According to the first,‘ An entire left hind leg of Ursus speleus was found 
lying above the incrustation of stalagmite which covered the bones of other extinct 
species and the carved flints’ (p. 52). - 
It is only necessary in reply to this to repeat what has been already stated: 
All the bones of Cave-bear found in the Cavern were in beds below the stalagmite. 
The following quotation from the same work contains the second inaccuracy, 
or, more correctly, group of inaccuracies, mentioned above: ‘We may mention 
among others the cave at Brixham, where, associated with fragments of rude 
pottery and bones of extinct species, heaps of oyster shells and other saltwater 
molluscs occur, as well as fish-bones of the genus scarus’ (p. 104). 
I am afraid there is no way of dealing with this paragraph except that of meet- 
ing all its statements with unqualified denials. In short, Brixham Windmill-Hill 
Cavern contained no pottery of any kind whatever, not a single oyster shell, nor 
ceven a solitary bone of any species of fish. One common limpet shell was the 
only relic of a marine organism met with in the Cavern.’ 
As already intimated, the result of the researches at Brixham quickened a 
desire to. re-examine the Kent’s Cavern evidence, and this received a considerable 
stimulus from the publication of Sir C. Lyell’s Antiquity of Man in 1863. 
Having in the meantime made a careful survey of the Cavern, and ascertained 
that there was a very large area in which the deposits were certainly intact, to 
say nothing of unsuspected branches which in all probability would be discovered 
during a thorough and systematic exploration, I had arrived at the conclusion 
that, taking the Cavern at its known dimensions merely, the cost of an investiga- 
tion as complete as that at Brixham would not be less than 1,000/. 
Early in 1864, I suggested to Sir C. Lyell that an application should be made 
to the British Association, during the meeting to be held at Bath that year, for 
the appointment of a Committee, with a grant of money, to make an exploration 
of Kent’s Cavern; and it was decided that I should take the necessary steps in the 
matier. The proposal being cordially received by the Committee of the Geological 
Section, and well supported in the Committee of Recommendations, a Committee— 
consisting of Sir C. Lyell, Mr. J. Evans, Mr. (now Sir) J. Lubbock, Professor J. 
Phillips, Mr. E. Vivian, and myself (Hon. Secretary and Reporter)—was appointed, 
and 1002. 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 1873. The late Sir L. Palk (afterwards Lord Haldon), the 
proprietor, placed the Cavern entirely under the control of the Committee durmg 
the continuance of the work; the investigation was begun on March 28, 1865, 
and continued without intermission to June 19, 1880, the Committee being 
annually reappointed with fresh grants of money, which in the aggregate 
amounted to 1,900/.; besides 63/. received from various private sources. 
The mode of exploration was essentially the same as that followed at Wind- 
mill-Hill, Brixham, but as Kent’s Cavern, 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 had to be considerably more elaborate, while 
they remained so perfectly simple that the workmen had not the least difficulty in 
