56 report — 1877. 



not discovered until 1821. British Cave-hunting appears to Lave been a science of 

 Devonshire birth. 



The Oreston Caverns soon attracted a considerable number of able observers ; 

 they were visited in 1822 by Dr. Bucldand and Mr. Warburton ; and in a compa- 

 ratively short time became the theme of a somewhat voluminous literature. No- 

 thing of importance, however, seems to have been met with from 1822 until 1858, 

 when another cavern, containing a large number of bones, was broken into. Un- 

 fortunately, there was no one at hand to superintend the exhumation of the speci- 

 mens ; the work was left entirely to the common workmen, and was badly done ; 

 many of the remains were dispersed beyond recovery ; the matrix in whi'ch they 

 were buried was never adequately examined ; and we are utterly ignorant, and 

 must for ever remain so, as to whether they did or did not contain indications of 

 human existence. I visited the spot from time to time, and bought up everything 

 to be met with ; but other scientific work in another part of the county occupied 

 me too closely to allow more than an occasional visit. The greater part of the 

 specimens I secured were lodged in the British Museum, where they seem to have 

 been forgotten, whilst a few remain iu my private collection. 



Some difference of opinion has existed respecting the character of the successive 

 caverns, and much mystery has been imported into the question of the introduction 

 of their contents. Mr. Whidbey, it is said, " saw no possibility of the cavern of 181G 

 having had any external communication through the rock in which it was enclosed " 

 (Phil. Trans. 1817, pp. 176-182); but Dr. Buckfand was of opinion that they were all 

 at first fissures open at the top, and " that the openings had been long filled up with 

 rubbish, mud, stalactite, or fragments of rock cemented, as sometimes happens, into 

 a breccia as solid as the original rock, and overgrown with grass " (Phil. Trans. 

 1822, pp. 171-240). 



The conclusion I arrived at, after studying so much of the roof of the cavern of 

 1858 as remained intact, was that Dr. Bucldand 's opinion was fully borne out by 

 the facts ; that, in short, the Oreston caverns were Fissure Caverns, not Tunnel 

 Caverns. 



The Cavern of 1858 was an almost vertical fissure, extending a length of about 90 

 feet from N.N.E. to S.S. W. It commenced at about 8 feet below the surface of the 

 plateau, continued thence to the base of the cliff, but how much further was not 

 known, and its ascertained height was about 52 feet. It was 2 feet wide at top, 

 whence it gradually widened to 10 feet at bottom. The roof, j udging from that part 

 which had not been destroyed, was a mass of limestone-breccia, made up of large 

 angular fragments, cemented with carbonate of lime, and requiring to be blasted as 

 much as ordinary limestone. The Cavern was completely filled with deposits of 

 various kinds. 



The uppermost 8 feet consisted of loose angular pieces of limestone, none of which 

 exceeded 10 lb. in weight, mixed with a comparatively small amount of such sand 

 as is common in dolomitized limestone districts, but without a trace of stalagmite 

 or fossil of any kind. The 32 feet next below were occupied with similar materials, 

 with the addition of a considerable quantity of tough, dark, unctuous clay. Between 

 this mass and the outer wall of the cavern was a nearly vertical plate of stalagmite, 

 usually about 2 feet thick, and containing, at by no means wide intervals, firmly 

 cemented masses of breccia identical in composition with the adjacent bed just 

 mentioned. The bones the cavern yielded were all found within these 32 feet ; 

 and were met with equally in the loose and the coherent breccia, as well as in the 

 stalagmite. A somewhat considerable number of ellipsoidal balls of clay, from 1*6 

 to 2'5 inches in greatest diameter, occurred in the clay of this bone-bed, but not 

 elsewhere. Still lower was a mass of dark, tough, unctuous clay, containing a very 

 few, small, angular stones, but otherwise perfectly homogeneous, and known to be 

 12 feet deep, but how much more was undetermined. 



The osseous remains found at Oreston prior to 1858 have been described bj r Sir E. 

 Home, Mr. Clift, Dr. Bucldand, Professor Owen, Mr. Busk, and others. The ani- 

 mals represented were Urstts priscus, U. spelceus, Weasel ('?), Wolf, Fox, Cave 

 Hyama, Cave Lion, Rhinoceros leptorhintis, Equus fossilis, JE. plicidens, Asinus fossi/is, 

 Bison minor, Bos longifrons, and, according to the late Mr. Bellamy, Mammoth and 

 Hippopotamus (see Nat. Hist, of S. Devon, 1830, p. 82). With regard to Hippo- 



