30 REPORT — 1872. 



but occasionally they have been corroded or fretted into cavities of rudely 

 elliptical outline, fi'om a foot to 2 feet in height. The largest of them 

 measures 5 feet long and something less than 1 foot wide ; its walls are 

 much fretted, and numerous pipe-like stalactites depend from its roof. Some 

 of the holes are completely lined with stalactite, whilst others are quite bare. 

 There are no traces of Cave-earth in any of them. 



The north-eastern waU of the Cave, from the entrance to nearly 30 feet within 

 it, is a confused mass of large fallen blocks of limestone. With this excep- 

 tion, the walls, as in the other branches of the Cavern, consist of beds of 

 hraestone in situ. They are not much fretted, their edges are all more or' 

 less angular, and they are here and there traversed by fissures corresponding 

 with the lines of fracture in the Eoof. 



From the considerable remnants left undisturbed by Mr. MacEneiy, there 

 was, no doubt, a continuous " Granular Stalagmitic Floor " from end to end. 

 It seems to have varied from 3 to 12 inches in thickness, and to have possessed 

 the granular and laminated structure characteristic of the Floor covering the 

 " Cave-earth." In a large area at the south-eastern angle of the Cave the 

 Floor had been left untouched, and was found to be in some cases fully 2 feet 

 thick. Like that in a great part of the adjacent Sloping Chamber, of which 

 it is a prolongation, it contained numerous large masses of limestone and of 

 the " Old Crystalline Stalagmitic Floor " so frequently mentioned in former 

 Keports. 



Similar masses, of both kinds, were abundant in the Cave-earth below the 

 Floor in the area just mentioned ; and in some instances the blocks of hme- 

 stone lay across one another with but little deposit between them, as if they 

 had fallen after the accumulation of Cave-earth had ceased. In a few in- 

 stances the cavities or interspaces were not covered with the Stalagmite, 

 and some of them contained a few recent bones and other objects. 



Omitting this south-eastern area, Mr. MacEnery extended his researches 

 quite to the innermost point of the Cave, and, with few exceptions, up to 

 13 feet from the entrance, had broken up and searched the entire deposit to 

 a depth exceeding the Committee's four-feet sections. Within the point just 

 specified, he contented himself with cutting a comparatively narrow trench, 

 leaving the ground quite intact adjacent to, and a few feet from, the south- 

 western wall, but, as before, carrying his excavations to a depth exceeding 4 

 feet. At 24 feet from the entrance, however, he dug to no greater depth than 

 2 feet, and very rarely exceeded this in the inner part of the Cave, — thus leaving 

 the Committee's third and fourth foot-levels everywhere intact, besides the belt 

 adjacent to the south-western wall, of which, as already mentioned, no portion 

 was touched. This margin, it may be presumed, was left intact in consequence 

 of all the excavated material being lodged on it. No portion of the latter 

 appears to have been taken out of the Cave. 



The deposit the Committee found in the Wolfs Cave, whether disturbed or 

 undisturbed, was well-marked typical Cave-earth, consisting of red loam with 

 about 50 per cent, of angular fragments of limestone. There were no traces 

 of the older deposit termed " Breccia " in previous Eeports, either in situ or 

 redeposited, and, excepting the area in the south-eastern corner, already 

 mentioned, no fragments of the Old Crystalline Stalagmitic Floor. 



In proceeding to the objects found in the Wolf's Cave, it is obvious that 

 nothing can be said about such as may have been on or in the Stalagmitic 

 Floor ; they, if such there were, had no doubt been secured by the earher 

 explorers. 



it has already been stated that there were occasional interspaces among 



