16 REPORT 1870. 



Sixth Report of the Committee for Exploring Kent's Cavern, Devon- 

 shire, — the Committee consisting of Sir Charles Lyell, Bart., 

 F.R.S., Professor Phillips, F.R.S., Sir John Lubbock, Bart., 

 F.R.S., John Evans, F.R.S., Edward Vivian, George Busk, 

 F.R.S., William Boyd Dawkins, F.R.S., William Ayshford 

 Sanford, F.G.S., c>^c? William Pengelly, F.R.S. (Reporter). 



During the year which has elapsed since the Association met at Exeter, the 

 Committee have continued their researches without intermission, and have 

 in all respects adhered to the method of exploration adopted at the com- 

 mencement and described in detail in their First Eeport (Birmingham, 

 1865). The Superintendents have continued to visit the Cavern daily, and to 

 send Monthly Reports of progress to Sir Charles Lyell, the Chairman of the 

 Committee ; the daily results have been regularly journalized ; the workmen, 

 George Smerdon and John Farr, have continued to give the most entire satis- 

 faction ; and the great interest felt in the investigations by visitors and resi- 

 dents in Torquay has undergone no abatement. 



At the close of the last Meeting of the Association, a large number of the 

 Members and Associates visited the Cavern, where they were received by one 

 of the Superintendents, who conducted them through it and explained the 

 most striking phenomena connected with it. In addition to this large party, 

 the Cavern has, from time to time during the year, been inspected, under the 

 guidance of the Superintendents, by Professor Stokes (President, British 

 Association), the Duke of Somerset, Lord Talbot de Malahide, Lord H. 

 Thynne, Sir H. Verney, Sir J. Kay Shuttleworth, Sir A. Malet, General 

 Cotton, Genei'al Lefroy, General Tremenhere, Rev. Dr. Robinson, Rev. Prof. 

 Maurice, Rev. 0. Fisher, Rev. H. H. Winwood, and Messrs. W. R. A. Boyle, 

 J. Dundas, A. MacmUlau, E. B. Tawney, R. Yalpy, W. Vicary, and A. 

 R. Wallace, and many others. 



The Committee have again the pleasure of reporting that they have been 

 enabled to render assistance to those engaged in similar researches elsewhere. 

 Sir J. Kay Shuttleworth, Chairman of the Committee who have recently 

 undertaken to explore the caves in the Mountain-Limestone near Settle, in 

 Yorkshire, opened a correspondence with the Superintendents of the work in 

 Kent's Cavern, which eventuated in an arrangement that Mr. Jackson, Super- 

 intendent of the Yorkshire investigations, should visit Devonshire for the 

 purpose of making himself fully acquainted with the mode of operation 

 carried out there. Accordingly, on March 1, 1870, he reached Torquay, 

 where every facUity was given him by the Superintendents and the workmen 

 for familiarizing himself with the work in aU its details. 



It has been stated in previous Reports : — that Kent's Cavern consists of an 

 Eastern and a Western Division, each composed of a series of chambers and 

 galleries ; that it has two Entrances, which are about 50 feet apart, 200 feet 

 above the mean sea-level, from 60 to 70 feet above the bottom of the valley 

 in the same vertical plane, situated in one and the same low vertical chff in 

 the eastern side of the hill, and which open at once into different branches 

 of the Eastern Division ; and that the labours of the Committee have been 

 restricted to the Eastern Division, the different branches of which were known 

 as the North-east Gallerj', the Vestibule or Sloping Chamber, the Gallery, 

 the Lecture Hall, the South-west Chamber, the Water Gallery, and the North 

 and South Sally-ports. In their Fifth Report (Exeter, 1869) the Committee 

 stated that, with the exception of the last two, the exploration of the entire 

 series had been completed to the depth of 4 feet below the stalagmitic floor. 



