ON FLINT AND CHERT IMPLEMENTS FllOM KENT's CAVERN. 211 



grizzly, and brown bears, Tvere by no means rare ; those of the cave-lion, wolf, 

 fox, and reindeer were less numcroiis ; and those of beaver, glutton, and 

 Macliairodus latkUns were very scarce. The presence of the hyajna was also 

 indicated by his coprolites, by bones broken after a manner still followed by 

 existing members of the same genus, and by the marks of his teeth found on 

 a very large proportion of the osseous remains in the cavern. In the lower 

 deposits (the Crystalliuo Stalagmite and the Breccia) remains of animals 

 were less uniformly distributed. In some places there were none throughout 

 considerable spaces, whilst in others they were so crowded as to form 50 per 

 cent, of the entire deposit. So far as is at present known, they were ex- 

 clusivel}' those of bear. Not only were there no bones of hyaena, there 

 were none of his faeces, none of his teeth-marks, and no bones fractured 

 after his well-known fashion, llemembering his cavern-haunting habits, it 

 may in all probability be safely concluded that the era of the Crystalline 

 Stalagmite and of the Breccia it covered, was prior to the advent of the 

 hytena in this country. The same inference cannot with certainty be drawn 

 with respect to the horse, ox, deer, &c., whose absence is equally pro- 

 nounced ; for it may be presumed that their bones occur in caverns simply 

 because their dead bodies were dragged there piecemeal ; and this would not 

 have occurred, even though they had occupied the country, before the arrival 

 of the great bone-eating scavenger which we call the cave-h5faena. The 

 bear, being a cave-dweller, presents no diihculty. 



The bones found in the uppermost deposit, the Black Mould, were of 

 much less specific gravity than those in the lower accumulations, and were 

 generally so light as to iioat in water. Those in the Cave-earth and Breccia 

 had lost their animal matter, and adhered to the tongue when applied to it, 

 so as frequently to support their own weight ; but those from the Breccia 

 (the lowest or oldest deposit) were much more mineralized and brittle than 

 those found in the Cave-earth, and usually emitted a metalKc ring when, 

 struck. 



The following general statements may be of service here, by way of reca- 

 pitulation, before proceeding further : — 



1st. Omitting the overlying blocks of limestone and the local Black Band, 

 the cavern contained three distinct mechanical accumulations :■ — the Black 

 Mould, or vippermost, or most modern ; the Cave-earth ; and the Breccia, or 

 lowermost, or most ancient. Their mode of succession was never transgressed ; 

 and the materials of which they consisted were so very dissimilar as to cha- 

 racterize them mth great distinctness. 



2nd. These three accumulations were separated by two distinct floors of 

 Stalagmite having strongly contrasted characters. That between the Breccia 

 below and the Cave-earth above it was eminently crystalline, whilst that 

 dividing the Cave- earth from the Black Mould was granular. 



3rd. Animal remains occurred in all, but were much more abundant in the 

 mechanical deposits than in the Stalagmites. 



4th. The period represented by the Breccia and Crystalline Stalagmite (the 

 most ancient period) may, as a matter of convenience, and so far as the cavern 

 is concerned, be termed the Ursine period, these deposits having yielded 

 remains of bears only. It must be understood, however, that bears are re- 

 presented in all the deposits. 



5th. The period of the Cave-earth and Granular Stalagmite may be deno- 

 minated the Hymnine period, the remains of hyaena being restricted to these 

 deposits and being more prevalent than those of any other genus. 



6th. The period of the Black Mould (the most modern period) may be 



p 2 



