128 report — 1878. 



The High Chamber. — la their Eleventh Report (1875) the Committee 

 stated that on June 15, 1875, they commenced the exploration of a 

 " Recess," opening out of thenorth-west corner of the Cave of Inscriptions, 

 which it was expected would lead to a new external opening to the Cavern ; 

 that its floor, a sheet of Crystalline Stalagmite, abruptly truncated at the 

 junction of the recess and the Cave of Inscriptions, had been found, by 

 boring, to be 18 inches thick ; that this floor covered and rested on a 

 thick accumulation of Breccia, reaching a higher level than elsewhere in 

 the Cavern so far as was known ; that it had been intended to leave the 

 floor intact, and to burrow under it ; that at 10 feet from the entrance the 

 lateral walls were so very nearly together as to render it necessary to 

 abandon the work altogether, or to break up the floor so as to secure, at a 

 higher level, sufficient space for the operations of the excavators ; and that 

 the work had been reluctantly suspended on July 6, 1875, after no more 

 than three weeks had been spent on the recess. (See ' Report Brit. Assoc.,' 

 1875, p. 11.) 



The workmen, on completing the Great Oven, were directed to return to 

 the Recess just mentioned, and, in accordance with the conclusion arrived 

 at in 1875, as already stated, to break up the thick floor of stalagmite, 

 instead of attempting to burrow under it. From that time they have been 

 exclusively occupied there, and at the end of July, 1878, had advanced 

 upwards of 30 feet from the entrance, and reached a level of about 6 feet 

 above that of the adjacent Cave of Inscriptions. On account of this com- 

 paratively high level, the name of the " High Chamber" has been given 

 to the so-called Recess. 



From the entrance up to 25 feet within it, there was a continuous un- 

 broken floor of stalagmite from 5 to 6 feet thick, with several large bosses 

 of the same material rising from it ; but everywhere beyond, so far as the 

 work has at present advanced, the floor consisted of large blocks of lime- 

 stone fallen from the roof, and extending almost from wall to wall, but 

 with stalagmite in some of the vertical spaces between them. 



The stalagmitic floor consisted mainly of the more ancient, or Crystalline, 

 variety, covered with a thin sheet of the less ancient, or Granular, kind. 

 In most cases the two stalagmites lay one immediately on the other, but 

 a few instances of " pockets," occupied with some Cave-earth, were met 

 with between them ; and the Breccia — or, so far as is known, the most 

 ancient deposit in the Cavern — was found everywhere beneath, and in con- 

 tact with the Crystalline Stalagmite. Large fallen blocks of limestone 

 occurred abundantly in this lowest accumulation, many of them requiring 

 to be blasted before they could be removed ; whilst several others, pene- 

 trating into the deposit below the depth to which the excavation was 

 carried, were left undisturbed. 



From the time the work was resumed in the high chamber up to the 

 end of July, 1878, a total of 53 " finds " had been met with, of which 2 

 occurred in the Granular Stalagmite, 1 in the Cave-earth, and 50 in the 

 Breccia. Of those in the Granular Stalagmite (Nos. 7153 and 7170), the 

 former consisted of three specimens of black, perhaps charred, bone ; 

 whilst No. 7170 was the greater part of an ulna unfortunately broken by the 

 workman who extracted it. The " find " in the Cave-earth, No. 7193, 

 was a solitary molar tooth of a horse. 



The specimens yielded by the Breccia included 89 teeth of bear, 

 many of them in jaws or portions of jaws ; pieces of skulls, bones and 

 pieces of bone, one flint nodule tool, two flint flakes, and a quartzite 

 pebble. 



