23 REPORT — 1870. 



has always been accessible, the roof and walls are much fretted, except certain 

 portions of the southern side, which are clothed with heavy masses of stalag- 

 mitic matter. The passage on the north-west of the " Islands " has the 

 aspect of a water-course whose roof and walls have subsequently been much 

 fretted, and in some places corroded into holes, perhaps less rudely resembling 

 " lithodomous perforations " than those in the South Sally-port, which have 

 been already mentioned. Between the " Islands" aud the external entrance, 

 indications that the passages are deserted water-courses fi'equently present 

 themselves, and " swallets " occur in the roof at various places — some lined 

 with stalagmite, some naked, some slightly stained with soil, and some per- 

 fectly clean. 



A floor of stalagmite of granular structure, which in many cases was so 

 charged with fragments of limestone as to be a concrete extremely dLHicult to 

 break up, extended continuously from the internal entrance to 1 4 feet within 

 it, and in some instances attained the thickness of 33 inches. Thence to 

 16 feet it thinned out before quite reaching the north-eastern or left wall, 

 after which it was again continuous to the end of the first " reach," where it 

 was in contact with the roof and was 12 inches thick. Beyond this the sta- 

 lagmite was very partial, rarely extended quite across the passages, and more 

 frequently than otherwise there was no trace of it. In the passage on the 

 soiith- western side of the two principal " islands," as well as in the narrow 

 " strait" which divides them, there were two more or less continuous floors, 

 one over the other, with an interspace of from 5 to 20 inches. In various 

 places there were, adhering sometimes to one wall only and sometimes to 

 both, rude moiilding-like fragments of a floor which had been destroyed. 



From the Internal Entrance, through the entire length of the first " reach " 

 and 8 feet inwards in the second, but in no instance beyond, a black deposit 

 (the true " black-mould " of previous Reports), varying from 1 to 20 inches in 

 depth, lay everywhere on the stalagmitic floor, where the latter existed, and 

 on the cave-earth (next to be described) where it did not, its junction with 

 the latter being sharply defined. Beyond the end of the first " reach " the 

 upper surface of the " black mould " approached the roof to within at most 

 10 or 14 inches. 



The deposit next below the stalagmitic floor was the red cave-earth, 

 being of the typical character to the depth of at least 2 feet, below which it 

 frequently consisted of loam of darker red and subangular pieces of grit of 

 the same colour — the materials of the breccia rather than of the cave-earth. 

 In every passage and at all levels there were incorporated in the cave-earth 

 fragments of stalagmite, varying in volume from a cubic inch to 10 cubic feet. 

 There were also, but in less abundance, well-rolled fragments of rock not de- 

 rivable from the cavern-hill. Amongst the latter was a portion of a yellowish 

 drab pebble of fine-grained grit or quartzite, which had obviously been broken 

 and subsequently rolled. This specimen was met with about 5 feet within 

 the new or External Entrance. 



At 19 feet from the Internal Entrance, a tunnel was found in the fourth 

 foot-level of the cave-earth, adjacent to the north-east wall ; and at 22 feet 

 another was broken into on the opposite side. A transverse vertical section 

 of the latter was a semieUipse, measuring 18 inches in breadth at the floor, 

 and the same in height, whilst another section of it, a few feet further in, 

 measured 33 and 24 inches respectively. That on the opposite side was not 

 quite so large. They were both continued through the remainder of the first 

 " reach " and to about 6 feet in the second, where they ended. Their depth 

 below the surface was tolerably uniform throughout j but they were not 



