ON Kent's cavern, Devonshire. 203 



the Lecture Hall, was commenced, aud at present has been completed to up- 

 wards of 40 feet from the entrance. 



For the first 15 feet there was the ordinary granular Stalagmitic Floor over- 

 lying the tj-pical Cave-earth, but beyond that point there was no stalagmite, 

 except a thin and very limited patch in one or two places. At the junction 

 with the Lecture Hall the floor was 21 inches thick, but it became rapidly 

 thinner as it extended inward ; and for some feet it did not exceed an inch 

 in thickness. 



No part of the Cavern is at present less than this exposed to drip. It may not 

 be out of place to state here, as a fact of, at least, large generality, and to Avhich 

 there is no known exception, that in those branches of the Cavern where the 

 drip is at present very copious the Stalagmitic Floor is of great thickness ; 

 and where the drip is but little, there is cither no floor or an extremely thin 

 one ; that, in short, the present amount of drip in any locality aff'ords a good 

 index of the thickness of the floor there, so that the external drainage of the 

 Cavern hiU appears to have undergone no change for a very lengthened 

 period. 



The South Sally-Port presented phenomena having no parallel in the ex- 

 perience of the Committee during the present exploration, but for which Mr. 

 M'Eneiy's " Cavern Kesearches " had prepared them. Speaking of the Sally- 

 Ports, or " Long Tongues," he says, " their entire area is honeycombed with 

 fox-holes, and the loam thrown up in mounds round their edges is mixed 

 with scales of the beetle, modern and fossil bones, all of which, as well as 

 the rocky contents, resembled bleached or calcined substances exposed on a 

 common." Indeed his description of the South Sally Port is not very en- 

 couraging. He says, " In attempting to reach the extremity of the lower 

 tongue at a point where it suddenly expands into a large grotto, the hollow 

 floor gave way like a pitfall with my weight and sank into a cleft of the rock. 

 I shall not dissemble my terror at my sudden descent. My eflforts to escape 

 would but cause the ground to sink still deeper and deeper into deeper 

 abysses. 



" ' At subito se aperire solum vastosque recessiis 

 Pandere sub pedibus nigraque voragine i'auces.' 



" The crash routed some animals from their subterranean abodes. I heard 

 them forcing their escape towards the oiitside through the incumbent earth, 

 and perceived their footmarks. The hounds frequently assemble outside 

 about this point, and frequeutlj- earth foxes there " *. 



Happilj' none of the present exploring party have experienced any incon- 

 venience during their researches ; but they are constantly meeting Avith tun- 

 nels in the Cave-earth, probably made by some burrowing animals, with 

 ancient and modern bones commingled both on the surface and at aU depths 

 below it, with great clusters of the Aving-cases of beetles exclusively on 

 or very near the surface ; and they have had impressed on them daily the 

 important but familiar truth that unless sealed up with a Stalagmitic Floor, 

 Cavern deposits are just as likely to be fraught with anachronisms as with a 

 trustworthy chronological sequence. 



During the present month (August 1869) one of the Superintendents has 

 had occasion to pass frequently through " The Labyrinth," a branch of the 

 Western Division of the Cavern. As he entered it on the 6th he observed 

 some fresh Cave-earth lying on the floor where there was no stalagmite, and 

 he directed the attention of the workmen to it. They had all passed alono- 



* See Trans. Derou. Assoc, vol. iii. p. 302 (1869). 



