574 



REPORT — 1898. 



variety of animal life, especially in the furthest portion. Bats, chiefly 

 fruit bats {GynojMrus), toads {Bufo asper), the cave snake, myriapods, 

 insects, arachnida, and mollusca are abundant. The floor is thickly 

 covered with bat-dung to a great depth, and, except in a few spots, but 

 little calcareous deposit is being formed. 



At the mouth of the cave the stalagmite floor comes to the surface, 

 and drops abruptly for a height of four feet. It consists largely of fallen 

 blocks of stalactite cemented by stalagmite. In front of this is a small 

 plateau, about twenty-three feet long, sloping to the edge of the cliS". 

 This is covered with a layer of soil, three feet deep, containing a few scraps 

 of Chinese pottery and fragments of ox-bones, and below this is an older 

 cave floor, consisting of a hard, tough rock of soil and lime combined, full 



Fig. 1. — Diagram of Section at Mouth of Dark Cave. 



Cca'e fZe?cr 



Fiui'ictiiZe- deposit I 







of bones of bats, and a few shells resembling those to be found in or 

 around the caves. 



As bat-bones in such abundance are only to be found in the darkest 

 parts of the caves, and at some distance from its mouth, this shows thatj 

 the cave extended formerly to the edge of the cliff, and probably far 

 beyond. The original entrance has evidently been quite denuded awayJ 

 and had any human beings tenanted the cave at that period they would! 

 probably have left their traces in the lighter cave mouth, which must havej 

 disappeared long ago. 



On descending the cliff to a small ledge about twenty feet below the! 

 stratum containing bat-bones, I found a very small cavern about six feet] 

 higli, the walls of which were formed of a fluviatile deposit of yellow] 

 mud, with bits of carbonate of lime. This deposit was traced to the footj 



