ON KENT S CAVERN, DEVONSHIRE. 



43 



Tab 



F. IX. — Showing the distribution of the Teeth of the different kinds of 

 Mammals in each of the four Foot-levels of thirteen Parallels of Cave- 



earth in the Charcoal Cave. 



The following may be mentioned amongst noteworthy bones found in the 

 Charcoal Cave : — The distal end of a tibia (No. 5906), an astragalus, and the 

 proximal end of an os calcis of horse, all inosculated in true anatomical posi- 

 tion as when clothed with flesh, thus intimating that they were so clothed 

 when lodged where they were found. The fractured end of the tibia affords 

 decided evidence of the powerful jaws of the hyaena. With the specimens 

 were found another distal end of a tibia of horse, a metatarsus of horse, a 

 metatarsus of reindeer, part of an antler, a rather small astragalus, and a 

 gnawed bone. They were lying but little below the surface of the Cave-earth, 

 where it was not more than 1-5 foot deep, almost in contact with the roof of 

 the southern branch, and deposited on the old dark red Breccia ; and they were 

 extracted June 6, 1872, in the presence of one of the Superintendents. 



In a precisely similar situation, and but one foot from the objects just 

 named, a metacarpus of horse and a large atlas were found two days after. 



On April 22, 1872, there were found on the surface of the Cave-earth 

 upwards of 600 bones of rodents all lying together; and on the 11th of the 

 same month nearly 800 small stalagmitic bodies, which may be likened to 

 rather large, ill-shapen, rugose marbles, were found in a heap on the Cave- 

 earth, in a small recess in the wall of the southern branch, with two hazel- 

 nut-shells and a piece of bone. On May 17 a similar but smaller heap, con- 

 taining about 100 such " marbles," with a toothless fragment of jaw, was 

 met with in a position precisely like the former. Several coprolites were 

 found in the Charcoal Cave. 



One small flake of white flint (No. 5899) was found in the southern branch 

 on May 22, 1872. It may be dismissed with the remark that it lay in the first 

 Level of Cave-earth with 2 teeth of hyaena. 



Bones and teeth were found in the old dark red Breccia in the central and 

 southern branches. The bones were much broken in digging them out, on ac- 

 count of the rock-like character of the Breccia. The teeth, like those found in 

 the same deposit in other parts of the Cavern, were all of them those of bear. 



In their Fifth Report (Exeter, 1869) the Committee called attention to a 

 flake of flint found in the Breccia in the " Water Gallery," and pronounced 

 by Mr. John Evans, F.R.S., a Member of the Committee, to be not only of 



e2 



