150 REPORT — 1879. 



Cave No. V. — As mentioned in my first Report, I was still occupied at 

 the date of its despatch in the examination of this cave. Excavation B 

 was continued across the low-level chamber to its left-hand wall, where 

 the earth attained a thickness of about 5 feet. The contents preserved 

 the character already noted throughout, and they yielded no sign of 

 organic remains of any kind whatever. Excavation G, situated half-way 

 up the steep entrance talus was carried to a depth of 4 feet only. The 

 contents were washed, when their condition admitted of the employment 

 of this process, with the result that a few bones of bats and small rodents, 

 together with abundance of the usual land and fresh- water shells were 

 met with ; but nothing to warrant an extended working until the remains 

 sent from the D excavation shall have been examined and reported upon. 

 The earth in C working became concreted just below the surface to such 

 a degree of hardness as to necessitate frequent blasting ; but this stony 

 concrete was irregularly distributed, the earth being in parts quite friable 

 down to the bottom of the excavation. Excavation F was cut into a bank 

 of pure guano, capped by a deposit of rotten stalagmite, about 1 foot thick. 

 This bank is a small local deposit of only a few yards' extent. Neither 

 bones nor shells occurred here. Excavation D. — I blasted out a small 

 portion of the hard reddish-yellow concrete lying immediately below the 

 ossiferous river-mud in this excavation ; but seeing no sign of bones, and 

 the hole filling with water, I did not work down to the limestone floor. I 

 finally abandoned Cave No. V. on January 4, and transferred the work- 

 men the next day to No. XIII. 



Cave XIII. — This cavern consists of a simple large tunnel piercing 

 the Jambusan hill from side to side (or rather that spur of it known 

 among the Dyaks as Gunong Bak), about a quarter mile to the eastward 

 of Cave No. V. The entrance is about 45 feet above the level of the 

 plain ; and the real floor, where the limestone rock has been exposed by 

 the drip about the centre of the cave, is some 10 feet lower. I enclose a 

 plan of the entrance hall, with one transverse and one longitudinal section 

 of the deposits worked through. I have already consigned you to a sample 

 of the ossiferous contents of the cave, together with specimens of the 

 various deposits it afforded. These latter, I should mention, are all much 

 wetter, and therefore harder and stifler, when freshly exposed than will 

 be apparent from their appearance when they reach you. I made no 

 excavations in the interior part of the cave, where I found a great thick- 

 ness of the usual tenacious yellow clay ; but I cut one trench just within 

 the entrance, and a second one somewhat in advance in it. The series of 

 deposits met with were as follows : — 



Excavation A. 



Stratum 1. — A narrow band (1 to 4 inches thick) of black earth full 

 of fragments of charcoal, broken cooking utensils, bones, &c, being the 

 debris left in recent years by the Dyaks, when camping in the cave for 

 the purpose of taking the nest-harvest. This layer was thrown aside 

 after very superficial scrutiny. It is noteworthy that it contains sparingly 

 the shells of a marine bivalve — a Cardium, I think (lot 108). 



Stratum 2. — A hard stalagmitic layer (about 4 inches thick) , coloured 

 reddish by intermixture of clay, and containing a few land shells and 

 remains of bats, which, however, appear to die out in the next succeeding 

 stratum. 



