146 report— 1879. 



copious, on account of the unusually heavy rainfall the preceding day, as 

 well as the previous saturated condition of the ground, 1 that the workmen 

 were wet to the skin within two hours after beginning their work. 



Since its resumption, the excavation in Clinnick's Gallery has been 

 steadily carried on, and is still in progress ; and at the end of July it had 

 advanced 27 feet beyond the seventy-five mentioned in the Eleventh 

 Report (1875). The deposit found there after the work was resumed 

 was exclusively the Breccia, the upper surface of which dipped steadily in 

 the direction in which the workmen advanced, and was 25 inches lower 

 at the point reached on July 31, than at that at which the work was 

 resumed in May. It was covered uniformly with Stalagmite, varying from 

 12 to 30 inches thick. 



The paucity of specimens mentioned in the Eleventh Report still 

 characterises this branch of the Cavern, for though upwards of tw 

 months have elapsed since the workmen returned thither, no more than 

 three ' finds ' have been met with in that time — a small fragment of a 

 Bear's jaw, with a few splinters of teeth (No. 7,314), found in the second 

 foot-level, on May 31, 1879, and two chert nodule tools (Nos. 7,316 and 

 7,317). 



The chert tools, however, are of sufficient interest to repay the time 

 and labour spent in exhuming them. No. 7,316 is of a light drab- 

 coloured, granular chert, covered almost everywhere with a manganic (?) 

 smut, but having a considerable patch of Breccia cemented to it with 

 carbonate of lime. The outline of the tool is that of a trapezium with the 

 angles rounded. It is 5'8 inches long, 31 inches in greatest width, and 

 2 - 3 inches in greatest thickness. The butt-end is almost square, and 

 measures 1"4 inch by 1*3 inch. The tool attains its greatest thickness 

 about 2 inches from this end, whence it tapers on each face to an oblique 

 chisel-edge. The condition of the various edges is not inconsistent witl. 

 the supposition that the tool had been slightly rolled. It was found alont 

 on July 15, 1878, in the third foot-level of the Breccia. 



No. 7,317 was unfortunately broken by the workman by whom it was 

 found and dug out, and who, before he saw it, to use his own language, 

 ' throw'd the pick into'n.' The surface of the fracture has a very white 

 chalk-like aspect, but the application of hydrochloric acid causes no 

 effervescence. Like the preceding tool, its surface is largely covered with 

 a manganic (?) smut. In form the tool may be said to be somewhat 

 pear-shaped. It measures 5 - 6 inches in length, 3'5 inches in greatest 

 width, and 2" 6 inches in greatest thickness, It was found alone on 

 July 25, 1879, in the second foot-level of the Breccia, within 2 f e ' - p 

 No. 7,316. 



It is perhaps noteworthy that the only other chert tool having, like 

 Nos. 7,316 and 7,317, a blackened surface, which the Cavern has yielded, 

 was the fine specimen, No. ( , 4 \ r , met with also in Clinnick's Gallery, and 

 described in the Committee's Tenth Report (Report, British Association, 

 1874, pp. 15-16). It was found, April 23, 1874, in the fourth foot-level 

 of the Breccia, and was also a nodule tool, but not quite so large as the 

 specimens described above. 



Clinnick's Gallery, so far as it has been explored, varies from 12 to 4 

 feet wide and from 7 - 5 to 11 feet high. It consists of three Reaches, of 



1 Rain fell every day during the ten preceding days ; the total fall amounted to 

 3-01 inches, of which -97 inch fell on the 15th. 



