138 REPORT—1874. 
beneath them may have been forming simultaneously inside and outside the 
eave ; and these two spots, we believe, are the only places where we have 
found distinctly yellow clay during the explorations. Some small fragments 
of bone were found beneath the yellow clay in ordinary cave-mud with an- 
gular limestone, to all appearance lower cave-earth, similar to that more fully 
exposed in the cave; but we came down upon some very large blocks of 
limestone, and did not think it advisable to enlarge the hole. 
This is the only vertical hole which the Committee have dug this year, and 
it is shallow, not more than 4 feet deep. All our operations have been con- 
- ducted by digging out in horizontal layers, to avoid any confusion which 
might arise from the falling in or mixing up of things of different ages in 
vertical shafts. 
Those who were present at the uncovering of the boulders were unani- 
mously of opinion that they had not fallen from the cliff in postglacial times, 
for the following reasons :— 
1. The cliff immediately above the cave is free from any boulder deposits 
for a considerable distance. 
2. The boulders lie at the base of all the talus, which must have been 
forming eyer since glacial conditions declined, and no other falls of 
even isolated boulders have occurred throughout the whole thickness 
of screes. 
3. The boulders are so close beneath the cliff, that if all the limestone 
which has fallen from it and is now lying on the boulders could be 
restored to the cliff, it would project so much further forward, that 
the fall of the boulders from the cliff to their present position would 
be impossible. 
Professor Prestwich and Mr. Bristow, who were good enough to visit the 
cave earlier in the year, both give it as their opinion that the boulders had 
not fallen from the cliff, but were part of the ordinary drift deposit which 
covers the bottom of the valley and lines the hill-sides up to the bottom of 
the cliffs hard by. 
The important bearing of these questions upon the correlation and age of 
the drifts of England and the antiquity of Man cannot be overestimated*. 
If rightly interpreted, it may give the key to much that has hitherto been 
unsatisfactory, and even contradictory, in Pleistocene geology. 
In conclusion, the Committee have much pleasure in offering their thanks 
to the Settle Committee for the generous and liberal manner in which they 
have carried on this important investigation, and to Mr. John Birkbeck, Jun., 
for his valuable services as Honorary Treasurer and Secretary from the com- 
mencement. 
They have also to thank the following gentlemen for assistance kindly 
given :—Professor Busk, Dr. Leith Adams, Mr. Franks, and Mr, T. Dayies of 
the British Museum. 
Your Committee propose that they may be reappointed. 
* “The Relation of Man to the Ice-sheet’in the North of England,” ‘ Nature, vol. ix. 
No. 210, p. 14. 
