TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 57 



potamus, I can only say that I have never met with satisfactory evidence of its 

 occurrence in Devonshire ; but the Mammoth was certainly found at Oreston in 

 1858; and, unless I am greatly in error, remains ofShinocerostichorhmuavreKtAao 

 met with then, and lodged by me in the British Museum. It may be added that 

 the skull and other relics of Hog were exhumed on that occasion, and now belong; 

 to my collection. There was nothing to suggest that the cavern had been the homo 

 of the Hyasna; and whilst I fully accept Dr. Buckland's opinion that animals had 

 fallen into the open fissures and there perished, and that the remains had sub- 

 sequently been washed thence into the lower vaultings (Reliq. Dil. 2nd ed. 1834, 

 p. 78), I venture to add that some of the animals may have retired thither to die ; 

 a few may have been dragged or pursued there by beasts of prey ; whilst rains, 

 such as are not quite unknown in Devonshire in the present day, probably washed 

 in some of the bones of such as died near at hand on the adjacent plateau. Nothing 

 appears to have been met with suggestive of human visits. 



Kent's Hole. — About a mile due east from Torquay harbour and half a mile north 

 from Torbay, there is a small wooded limestone hill, the eastern side of which is, 

 for the uppermost 30 feet, a vertical cliff, having at its base, and 54 feet apart, two 

 apertures leading into one and the same vast cavity in the interior of the hill, and 

 known as Kent's Hole or Cavern. These openings are about 200 feet above mean 

 sea-level, and from them the hill slopes rapidly to the valley at its foot, at a level 

 of from 60 to 70 feet below. 



There seems to be neither record nor tradition of the discovery of the Cavern. 

 Richardson, in the 8th edition of ' A Tour through the Island of Great Britain,' 

 published, in 1778, speaks of it as " perhaps the greatest natural curiosity " in the 

 county ; its name occurs on a map dated 1769 ; it is mentioned in a lease dated 

 1059 ; visitors cut their names and dates on the stalagmite from 1571 down to the 

 present century; judging from numerous objects found on the floor, it was visited 

 by man through mediaeval back to pre-Roman times ; and, unless the facts exhumed 

 by explorers have been misinterpreted, it was a human home during the era of the 

 Mammoth and his contemporaries. 



In 1824, Mr. Nortkmore of Cleve, near Exeter, was led to make a few diggings in 

 the Cavern, and was the first to find fossil bones there. He was soon followed by 

 Mr. (now Sir) W. C. Trevelyan, who not only found bones, but had a plate of them 

 engraved. In 1825, the Rev. J. MacEnery, an Irish Roman Catholic priest residing 

 in the family of Mr. Gary, of Tor Abbey, Torquay, first visited the Cavern, when 

 he, too, found teeth and bones, of which he published a plate. Soon after, he made 

 another visit, accompanied by Dr. Buckland, when he had the good fortune to dis- 

 cover a flint implement— the first instance, he tells us, of such a relic being noticed 

 iu any cavern (see Trans. Devon. Assoc, iii. p. 441). Before the close of 1825, 

 he commenced a series of more or less systematic diggings, and continued them 

 until, and perhaps after, the summer of 1829 (ibid. p. 205). Preparations appear 

 to have been made to publish the results of his labours ; a prospectus was issued, 

 numerous plates were lithographed, it was generally believed that the MS. was 

 almost ready, and the only thing needed was a list of subscribers sufficient to justify 

 publication, when, alas ! on 18th February, 1841, before the printer had received 

 any " copy," before even the world of Science had accepted his anthropological 

 discoveries, before the value of his labours was known to more than a verv few, 

 Mr. MacEnery died at Torquay. 



After his decease his MS. could not be discovered, and its loss was didy deplored. 

 Nevertheless, it was found after several years, and, having undergone varieties of 

 fortune, became the property of Mr. Vivian, of Torquay, who, having published 

 portions of it in 1859, presented it in 1807 to the Torquay Natural-History Society, 

 whose property it still remains. In 1869, I had the pleasure of printing the whole, 

 in the 'Transactions of the Devonshire Association.' 



Whilst Mr. MacEnery was conducting his researches, a few independent diggings, 

 on a less extensive scale, were undertaken by other gentlemen. The principal of 

 these was Mr. Godwin- Austen, the well known geologist, whose papers fully bore 

 out all that MacEnery had stated. (See Trans. Geol. Soc. Loud. 2nd series, vi. 

 p. 4460 In 1846, a sub-committee of the Torquay Natural-History Society under- 



1877. 5 



