200 REPORT— 1873. 



The Arcade is very narroAv in proportion to its length. From 17 feet wide 

 at the entrance, it narrows to 5 feet at about 27 yards within, then expand- 

 ing to 11 or 12 feet, and again contracting until, at 42 yards, it is no more 

 than 6 feet wide, it once more enlarges to an average width of 9 feet, and 

 beyond the Bi'idge it becomes an irregular chamber, upwards of 30 feet long 

 and about 15 wide. The exploration has been completed to the inner end of 

 this chamber ; but the Arcade, again much contracted, has a further prolonga- 

 tion of about 50 feet before reaching the Cave of Inscriptions. 



In the left or southerly waU of the chamber just mentioned is the entrance 

 to the Labyrinth, and of another and smaller branch. Towards these the work- 

 men are now directing their labours. 



As the earlier explorers had made some excavations here and there 

 throughout the greater part of the Arcade, and thus deprived the Committee 

 of the opportunity of studying it before disturbed by man, the following 

 description, compiled from Mr. MacEnery's manuscripts, may be of interest : — 

 The floor was in great disorder, strewn with rocks having between them in 

 certain places natural reservoirs of water, and in others loose heaps of red 

 marl overspreading the stalagmite and containing fossil bones. The first 

 rhinoceros-tooth found in the cavern was met with in one of those heaps. 

 A peculiarity of this passage was a profusion of a white crumbling substance 

 not unlike half-slacked lime. Hock after rock, on being turned over, presented 

 patches of it on its surface ; the loose mud also contained it ; and wherever 

 stalagmite had formed between the rocks, it, when ripped up, exhibited large 

 deposits of the same matter. In the crevices of the rock and near the surface 

 of the marl it occurred in baUs partly crushed ; several balls were found in 

 some instances pressed together, in others uninjured, adhering, and exhi- 

 biting the tapering point they had when dropped by the animal ; and they 

 were occasionally found singly. There was no doubt that they were copro- 

 lites, and no difi'erence between these faecal deposits and those of the hysena 

 in Exeter Change, except in the far greater size of the fossil balls. The 

 osseous substance was the same in both ; undigested particles of bone and 

 enamel were detected in some of them ; and the explorers were led to the con- 

 clusion that the Arcade was the chosen resort of the Cavern-hytenas for 

 purposes of cleanliness. In this they were subsequently confirmed by a letter 

 from Captain Sykes to Dr. Bucldand, published in the Edin. Phil. Journal*, 

 descriptive of a recent hyajna-cave in India, where, from the almost exclu- 

 sive accumulation of faeces in particular spots, the writer inferred that certain 

 chambers were dedicated to cleanliness. In these retreats few or no bones 

 occurred, " This description," says Mr. MacEnery, " is in its details quite 

 applicable to Kent's Hole. It appears to have been preserved to us in its 



actual state as when occupied by the extinct hyajna Whilst reading 



his letter, I imagined myself reading the history of another, sealed one — the 

 duplicate of Kent's Cave, and not the account of a living hycena's den." 

 "Wherever this substance was found accompanying remains, the latter were 

 invariably broken, and always in the same uniform manner; and none of it was 

 found where they occurred entire. Dr. Buckland, to whom the material was 

 pointed out, gave the Arcade the name of the " Hyajnse Cloaca Maxima." 



About halfway in the length of the Arcade, and near the left or southerly 

 wall, three circular hollows were observed in the floor, about 3 feet in dia- 

 meter, lined down the sides with a thin waving crust. The greasincss of the 

 earth, and the presence of single teeth of bear in different states of prescrva- 



* Vol. xvi. pp. 378-9 (1827). 



