TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D.—DEPT. ANTHROPOLOGY. 561 
exercise of much care and patience; but they have been replete with interest of a 
high order, which would be greatly enhanced if I could feel sure that your time 
has not been wasted nor your patience exhausted in listening to this Address 
respecting them. 
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21. 
The following Reports and Papers were read :— 
1. Report of the Committee for defining the Facial Characteristics of the 
Races and Principal Crosses in the British Isles.—See Reports, p. 306. 
2. Report of the Anthropometric Committee.—See Reports, p. 253. 
3. The Borness Cave, Kirkcudbrightshire. By A. R. Hunt, M.A., F.G.S. 
After referring to the published reports of the exploration of the Borness Cave 
(vid. ‘Proc. Soc. Ant. Scotland,’ vols. X., XI., XII.), and acknowledging his in- 
debtedness to his colleagues on the exploration committee for permission to refer to 
the manuscript records of the cave work, the author proceeded to point out the 
peculiar interest attaching to the Borness Cave, from its position on the sea- 
coast, and from its having been resorted to as a place of refuge on more than one 
occasion previous to the period known as Romano-British. The three principal 
occupations of the cave were indicated by the following deposits, viz.:—(1) An 
upper deposit of dark cave earth, between three and four feet thick, of Romano- 
British age. (2) A thin band of charcoal, bones, and shells at the junction of the 
fourth and fifth foot levels. (8) A layer of charcoal and other organic remains 
sloping outwards from the interior at an incline of about 1 in 26. At the entrance 
of the cave the lower band (3) was separated from the Romano-British cave earth 
(which at this point thins out) by a deposit consisting of stones and carbonate of 
lime in different proportions, capped by pure stalagmite. Of this deposit, at the 
point indicated, some five feet at least must have been formed before the Romano- 
British occupation commenced. The era of the occupation indicated by the lower 
band was separated from that indicated by the Romano-British cave earth by the 
period represented by the intercalated mass of stalagmite and breccia. Without 
attempting to define the rate of deposition of the carbonate of lime at Borness, the 
author deprecated any assumption that it was necessarily rapid; the absence of 
limestone in the neighbourhood and the exposure of the stalagmite to the wash of 
rains, presenting conditions unfavourable for its rapid formation. The fact that 
the cave is on the sea-coast precludes the possibility that it was resorted to as 
a refuge from the Saxons, who had command of the sea long before they took 
possession of Galloway by land. The Romano-British occupation of the Borness. 
cave may well have been earlier than that of the English caves that have pro- 
duced implements similar to those from Borness, as the district in which the 
latter is situated was less firmly held by the Romans than those parts of Great 
Britain south of the wall of Hadrian. The author referred to the well-known 
bone implements which have been variously described as links, portions of musical 
instruments, and receptacles for bone pins. Owing to the fact that one specimen 
from Borness was solid, and that another, a hollow one, contained bone pins, the 
author felt unable to accept any of the current theories respecting these im- 
plements. He suggested that these objects might have been advantageously used 
as handles for imparting a rotatory motion to individual strands in the manu- ' 
facture of leather ropes, the pegs fixed into a piece of wood being used to regulate 
the twist of the rope. The author exhibited a small three-strand leather rope made 
in the manner suggested. 
1883. 00 
