ON Kent's cavern, Devonshire. 45 



At its entrance this branch of the Cavern is about 17 feet in width and 13 

 in height. The roof is the naked limestone, much fretted or honeycombed. 

 The Granular Stalagmitic Floor was continuous in every direction and of very 

 great thickness. Its surface, for some distance, was occupied by a series of 

 natui-al basins, bounded by stalagmitic walls rising above the general level of 

 the floor. They varied in depth from an inch to fvdly a foot, and in wet 

 seasons were constantly fuU of water. Similar basins occur in other parts of 

 the Cavern, but those at the mouth of the Arcade (the great thoroughfare) 

 have attracted a large amount of attention. Mr. MacEnery described them as 

 " encircled with wavy walls, rivalling the most exquisite works in pastry"*. 

 When breaking up the floor it was observed that the bottoms of the basins 

 were formed of a softer looser stalagmite than that composing the walls, and 

 that these dissimilar characters extended vertically downwards through the 

 entire "Floor." Charcoal has been found in a few of them, and one con- 

 tained two or three bones. 



At the western wall of the Arcade, and sevei'al feet from it, the Stalagmitic 

 Floor was never less than 4, and not unfrequently upwards of 5 feet thick ; 

 but at the eastern wall it rarely measured more than 2 feet. The upper- 

 most 6 inches were frequently of a dirty reddish colour, as if soil-stained ; 

 but at greater depths it was very pure, often granular, occasionally flaky, and 

 everywhere distinctly laminated. 



At something more than a foot from the bottom of the Floor, there was 

 found in every section a roughly horizontal, continuous, black line, extending 

 from the western wall of the Arcade to a distance, in one instance, of 7 feet, 

 generally about a quarter of an inch thick, but never exceeding half an inch. 

 It was due to the presence of charcoal, and, of course, represented a thin sheet 

 of that material. It was very carefully watched as the Floor was broken up, 

 but yielded no trace of bone or of any substance besides the charred wood. 



This " Charcoal Streak" was observed and studied by Mr. MacEnery, who, 

 attaching great chronological importance to it, described it no less than four 

 times f. The portion of the Floor in which he found it was not more, at 

 most, than half the thickness of that recently broken up by the Committee. 

 From his description it appears to have been horizontal, midway from the 

 surface to the bottom of the stalagmite, from 1 to 2 inches thick, about 5 feet 

 in greatest length in any section, composed of charred wood and straw, and to 

 have contained the following objects imbedded in it : — Small polished pebbles 

 of white flint, shells, two portions of the jaw, a tusk, and some phalanges of 

 boar, the under jaw of a badger, bones of rabbits and rats, and cylindrical bones 

 which Dr. Buckland, who extracted them, assigned to deer. The latter were 

 half-roasted, and, with the exception of the jaws of the boar, all the bones had 

 been more or less exposed to the action of fire. No extraneous objects of any 

 kind were found in the Floor above or below the " Charcoal Streak." 



The Committee have been more fortunate, having met with bones in other 

 parts of the stalagmite, but all of them below the black line. The most note- 

 worthy of these are a tooth of deer (No. 5818), a large vertebra (No. 5951), 

 and a well-worn tooth of hysena (No. 5969). In the same deposit a piece 

 of black flint (No. 5938) was found July 18, 1872. 



Mr. MacEnery's diggings in the Cave-earth at the entrance of the Arcade 

 had in some places been carried to a depth of 3 feet below the Stalagmitic Floor, 

 thus leaving the fourth Foot-level intact. They gradually became less and less 

 deep, until at 12 feet from the entrance they ceased entirely. This excavated 

 material has been carefully reexamined, but contained very few specimens. 



* Trans. Devon. Assoc, vol. iii. p. 236. t Ibid. pp. 235, 236, 261, 291, and 335. 



