ON Kent's cavern, Devonshire. ]99 



least most of the inscriptions belong to the time when the upper Stalagmitic 

 Floor of the Lake was yet undissolved, much of the difficulty will disappear, as 

 wading would then have been easy — the Stalagmite would have afforded firm 

 footing, and the depth of the water would not have been very considerable, 

 even if permanently at the overflowing level, and the weir had been as high 

 as it is at present. 



The Water Gallery. — Having completed the excavation of the Lake, the 

 workmen resumed their tunnelling operations in the recess or passage lead- 

 ing out of the South-west Chamber in a south-westerly direction, and which, 

 as had been anticipated, was found to extend beneath the floor of the 

 basin and along its entire length. To this branch it is proposed to give the 

 name of "The Water Gallerj';" and probably no part of the Cavern sur- 

 passes it in interest or importance. 



As might have been expected, the deposit it contained was made up of 

 the same materials as everywhere else were foimd beneath the Old Ploor 

 of crystalline Stalagmite — dark red earth ; angular, subangular, and rounded 

 pieces of grit not derivable from the Cavern hill, but which the neighbour- 

 ing and loftier Lincombe and Warberry hills can supply ; angular pieces of 

 limestone, and pieces of stalagmite (some of them of great size), which, of 

 course, were remnants of a floor more ancient still than the Old crystalline 

 Floor which lay ahove the Breccia and below the Cave-earth. The points in 

 Avhich the Breccia difftTcd from the Cave-earth were the darker colour of 

 the red soil forming its stajjle and the much greater prevalence of fragments 

 of grit. By the latter character alone it is very easy to distinguish the ma- 

 terials of the two dej^osits when thrown into the huge mass of refuse which 

 the workmen have lodged outside the Cavern, especially after exposure to a 

 shower of rain. Many of the pieces of grit, both angular and rounded, 

 were of a very dark colour, and some of them had a polished metallic aspect, 

 somewhat like that of a black-leaded hearthstone. The removal of the 

 smallest spUnter, however, showed that both colour and polish were su- 

 perficial. 



Along a considerable part of the length and breadth of the "Water Gallery 

 the Breccia, instead of being in contact with the nether surface of the Sta- 

 lagmitic Floor which formed the bottom of the Lake, was sei^arated from it by 

 a vacuous interspace, sometimes 14 inches deep. It may be described as a 

 rudely lenticular space, as it was of greatest depth in the middle, and, if 

 the phrase is allowable, thinned ofl:' in every direction. A correct idea of 

 the complete insulation of this vacuity may be conveyed by stating that if 

 any animal, however small, could have become its occupant it would have 

 been a permanent prisoner unless it could have excavated for itself a passage 

 by which to escape. 



Here and there, moreover, the vacuity was interrupted by what may be 

 called " outliers " of Breccia, which reached, and were firmly adherent to 

 the Stalagmite above. In every other part, the ceiling, or lower surface of 

 the Stalagmite, retained traces of the deposit which had once been in con- 

 tact with it, and on which, indeed, it had been formed. To it there clung 

 angular and rounded pieces of rock, blocks of " Older'' Stalagmite, and bones, 

 teeth, and almost entire skulls of the Bear ; whilst between them, in the 

 ceiling, were the cavities once filled by similar objects, but which had fallen 

 out and were found on the surface of the Breccia beneath. From the ceil- 

 ing, too, there shot downwards numerous thin pipes of stalactite, of the 

 thickness and colour of goose-quills, some of which reached the Breccia. 

 The surface of the latter deposit beneath was here and there covered with 



