558 REPORT—1883. 
object, this might very easily have occurred—they might finally have said ‘15-25 
years’ labour’; for, so far as is known, no other relic of the species was met with 
‘during the entire investigation. In all probability had either of these by no means 
improbable hypotheses occurred, geologists and paleontologists generally would 
have joined the sceptics; MacEnery’s reputation would have been held in very 
light esteem ; and—to say the least—his Researches regarded. with suspicion. 
When their exploration began, and for some time after, the Committee had no 
reason to believe or to suspect that the Cavern contained anything older than the 
Cave-earth ; but at the end of five months, facts, pointing apparently to earlier 
deposits, 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 undisturhed and clear succession, not only the Cave- 
earth with the Granular Stalagmite lying on it, but, under and supporting the 
Cave-earth, another, thicker, and continuous sheet of Stalagmite—appropriately 
termed Crystalline, and below this again an older detrital accumulation, known as 
the Breccia, made up of materials utterly unlike those of the Cave-earth. 
The Breccia was just as rich as the Cave-earth in osseous remains ; but the lists 
of species represented by the two deposits were very different. It will be sufficient 
to state here that, while remains of the Hyzena prevailed numerically very far above 
those 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—in- 
cluding 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 hyzenas of the pre- 
sent day break them, and by surprising quantities of his coprolites, there was not a 
single indication of any kind of his presence in the Breccia, where the crowd of 
‘bones and teeth belonged almost entirely to Bears. 
No trace of the existence of Man was found in the Breccia until Mareh 1869, 
that is about twelve months after the discovery of the deposit itself; when a flint 
flake was met with in the’third foot-level, and was believed to be not only a tool, 
but to bear evidence of having been used as such (see Report Brit. Assoc. 1869, 
p. 201, 202). Two massive flint implements were discovered in the same deposit 
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 implements of 
flint and chert. 
While all the stone tools of both the Cave-earth and the Breccia were Palzeo- 
lithic and were found inosculating with remains of extinct mammals, a mere 
inspection shows that they belong to two distinct categories. ‘Those found in the 
Breccia—that is the more ancient series—were formed by chipping a flint nodule 
or pebble into a tool, while those from the Cave-earth—the less ancient series— 
were fashioned by first detaching a suitable flake from the nodule or pebble, and 
then trimming the flake—not 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 9 feet, instead of the usual 4 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 corre- 
‘sponding bed in Brixham Windmill-Hill Cavern. In short, in each of the two 
famous Devonshire Caverns the archeological zone reached a lower level than the 
paleontological. 
That the Breccia is of higher antiquity than the Caye-earth is proved by the 
