ON KENT^S CAVERN^ DEVONSHIRE. 3 



The discoveries in this branch of the Cavern were neither numerous nor 

 important. The total number of " finds," inchiding the few mentioned in the 

 Eleventh Eeport, amounted to 50. The remains found in the Cave-earth 

 included 2 teeth of HyaeHa, 6 of Eear, 10 of Ox, 1 plate of a small molar of 

 Mammoth, several bones and pieces of bone, including an astragalus of Horse, 

 a few coprolites of Hyaena, a portion of a flint flake (No. 6672), and a flint 

 chip (No. 6661). 



The flint flake (No. 6672) is of a pretty uniform cream-colour, almost a 

 parallelogram in outline, 1-4 inch long, -7 inch broad, abruptly terminated at 

 each end, one of which retains the original surface of the nodule from which 

 it was struck, and -3 inch in greatest thickness, which it attains near the 

 butt end. The inner face is slightly concave; the outer is very convex, 

 and consists of three planes or facets, the central one commencing near the 

 butt end, whilst those on each side of it extend the entire length of the flake. 

 Its ridges and (excepting a very few smaU notches) its lateral edges are quite 

 sharp, and show that it can have had little or no wear and tear in any way, 

 and that in all probability it reached the spot in which it was found, not by 

 the transporting action of water, but by human agency ; in short, that man 

 intentionally took it to, or accidentally left it in, one of the brajiches of the 

 Cavern most remote from the known external entrances. It occurred with 

 chips of bone, within a foot of the upper surface of the Cave-earth, 40 feet 

 from the mouth of the Great Oven, on 13th October, 1875. 



The specimens found in the Breccia were 8 teeth of Bear and a few bones, 

 none of which call for special description. 



■ Besides the foregoing, there were 2 teeth of Bear and some bones and pieces 

 of bone found at and near the junction of the two deposits, where, there 

 being no separating stalagmite, it was not always easy to determine whether 

 they belonged to the Cave-earth or to the Breccia, without trusting entirely 

 to the mineral characters of the specimens themselves. 



The Central or most contracted Eeach, that from which the Great Oven 

 more especially takes its name, is a perfectly empty tunnel, of elliptical 

 transverse section, about 2-75 feet high and 325 feet wide, with roof and 

 walls and floor so strikingly smooth as to denote a weU-worn and completely 

 fiUed watercourse, extending through the limestone in an easterly direction 

 for a distance of 20 feet, where it is succeeded by the Eastern Eeach, which 

 finally terminates in the Bear's Den, whence its exploration can alone be 

 undertaken. 



The two branches which the "Western Eeach throws off at its inner end, 

 one on each side of the Central Eeach, are filled with deposits from roof to 

 floor ; but as they are, at least at their entrances, very contracted in both 

 height and breadth, as the deposits they contain form a most intractable 

 concrete, and as the specimens found in their vicinity were comparatively 

 few and unimportant, the Superintendents closed their attempts to explore 

 them, at least for the present, and left the Great Oven on 27th October, 

 1875, having spent about three months on it. 



Tlie Labyrinth. — Three branches of the Cavern, known as " The Charcoal 

 Cave," " Underhay's Gallery," and " The Labyrinth," open out of the left or 

 eastern wall of " The Long Arcade," described in previous Eeports *. The 

 first two have been explored and reported onf; but the Committee had 

 undertaken no researches in the Labyrinth, the innermost and most important 



* See Eeiwrts Brit. Assoc. 1872, pp. 44-47 ; 1873, pn. 198-209; and 1874, pp. 3-6. 

 t lUJ. 1872, pp. 38-44; and 1874, pp. 6-9. 



