ON THE EXPLORATION OF KENT'S CAVERN, DEVONSHIRE. 145 



The specimens of flint and chert found in the Swallow Gallery are 

 not entitled to more than a mere enumeration. 



No. 7,260, a chert nodule, apparently never utilised in any way, was 

 found alone in the third foot-level, January 29, 1879. 



No. 7,273, a small chip or fragment of flint, was found alone, in the 

 third foot-level, February 22, 1879. 



No. 7,275, a small flake of flint, probably a fragment of a flake imple- 

 ment, was found on the surface, near a tooth of Bear and pieces of bone, 

 February 24, 1879. 



No. 7,301, a small chip of chert, was found in the first foofc-level, with 

 three teeth of Bear and numerous bones, April 22, 1879. 



Your Committee, when treating last year of the flint implements which 

 had then been found in the High Chamber, remarked, ' It is difficult to 

 understand how the tools found their way to a branch of the Cavern so 

 remote from the known entrances, and occupying so high a level. The 

 problem is apparently insoluble except on the hypothesis that the work- 

 men are approaching an entrance hitherto unknown ; and as this sup- 

 position has been forced on the minds of the Superintendents by other and 

 independent facts, they believe it to be most desirable to settle this question, 

 if possible, as they do not doubt that it would give a definiteness to the 

 explication of some of the Cavern phenomena.' — (Rep. Brit. Assoc, 1878, 

 p. 129.) 



The Superintendents have no doubt that the researches of the last 

 twelve months have converted their ' hypothesis ' of 'an entrance,' or, 

 more correctly, of entrances, ' hitherto unknown,' into an established fact. 

 They believe also that the facts prove that the said entrances — the 

 Swallow holes in the High Chamber and the Swallow Gallery — were com- 

 pbtoly closed before the beginning of the ' Cave-earth ' era, and have 

 jmained so to the present day. 



The entrance in the Swallow Gallery was probably never available as 

 a passage for any living animal ; but there can be little doubt that any 

 tolerably agile creature could readily have used that in the north-west 

 corner of the High Chamber. That the roof dividing this branch of the 

 Caveru from the open day is of very inconsiderable thickness is plainly 

 indicated by the levels, as well as by the distinctness with which all 

 external sounds are heard in that Chamber ; and the ' series of limestone 

 terraces,' mentioned already as leading up to the Swallow Hole, would 

 form convenient steps for a man or any infra-human animal desirous of 

 entering or leaving the Cavern. 



Qliv ■ IcJc's Gallery. — Your Committee, in their Eleventh Report (1875), 

 the following statement : — ' The comparative paucity of specimens 

 in Clinnick's Gallery induced the Superintendents, on December 1, 1874, 

 to suspend operations in that direction for at least a time. The labour of 

 seven months had been expended on it, during which the exploration had 

 reached 75 feet from the entrance, where the Great Chamber discovered 

 by John Clinnick may be said to begin.' — (Rep. Brit. Assoc, 1875, 

 pp. 5-6.) 



On May 24, 1879, when, as stated above, they left the Swallow 

 Gallery, the workmen returned to Clinnick's Gallery, the only known 

 branch of the Cavern the exploration of which has not been completed, 

 that is to the depth of four feet below the base of the Stalagmitic Floor. 



In wet weather this Gallery surpasses all other branches of the Cavern 

 in the amount of drip from the roof; and this, on June 16, was so very 

 1879. l 



