114 A.R.Hunt — Kent's Cavern and BucMand. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE V. 



Fig. 1. — Bairdia Beadnelli, sp. nov. a, view from right side ; b, edge view ; c, end 



view. Farafra Oasis. No. 3,3355. x 15. 

 Fig. 2. — Bairdia minuta, sp. nov. a, view from left side ; b, edge view ; c, end 



view. Farafra Oasis. No. 3,3355. x 15. 

 Fig. 3. — Cy there Farafrensis, sp. nov. a, view from left side ; b, edge view ; c, end 



view. Farafra Oasis. No. 3,3355. x 30. 

 Fig. 4. — PlaeopsiUna cenomana, d'Orb. Farafra Oasis. No. 3,3355. x 30. 

 Fig. 5. — ValviiUna Schivageri, sp. nov. a, the isolated test, lateral view; 5, c, 



sections in vertical direction ; d, transverse oral section. Farafra Oasis. 



Nos. 3,3355 and c. x 30. 

 Figs. 6a, 5. — Bulimina elegantissima, d'Orb., var. seminuda, Terquem. Farafra 



Oasis. No. 3,3355. x 30. 



III. — On Kent's Cavern with reference to Buckland and his 



Detractors. 



By Arthur R. Hunt, M.A., F.L.S., F.G.S. 



N the Geological Magazine for September, 1901, I pointed out 

 that Sir Henry Howorth had done Professor Huxley a great 

 injustice in charging him with having suppressed certain important 

 evidence. In the Magazine for January, 1902, Sir Henry, instead 

 of hastening to acknowledge his error, proceeds to deepen his guilt 

 by joining the pack that yelps at the heels of the great Dean 

 Buckland. 



The one object of Buckland and the old cave-hunters was to 

 reject a hundred facts rather than risk the acceptance of one error. 

 Sir Henry shows clearly by his article that he would readily 

 accept a hundred fallacies rather than run the risk of missing one 

 fact. Let us take his three cases of Burrington, Wookey Hole, and 

 Paviland, for each of which he censures Buckland, implicitly if not 

 explicitly, e.g. — 



Burrington. This is a cave in the Mountain Limestone with its 

 mouth nearly closed by ' stalactite.' In it were bones encrusted 

 by ' stalactite,' merely encrusted, not enclosed.^ Sir Henry remarks, 

 "It seems from our present knowledge almost certain that these 

 bones belonged to Palaeolithic man." 



Some years ago, when exploring a cave on the coast of Galloway, 

 my colleagues and self were desperately perplexed by portions 

 of a human skull found under a mass of some 18 inches of stalagmitic 

 breccia, capped by 2^ feet of practically pure stalagmite. Mr. W. 

 Bruce Clarke, who wrote the final report on the cave, was inclined 

 to dismiss the stalagmite as of no great importance, but kindly 

 allowed me to record my dissent from that conclusion.'^ Bijt the 

 very utmost I could urge would be the time that has elapsed since 

 the coastline has remained at its present level, as the cave seems 

 to be a sea-cave of the existing period ! 



Our skull, under some four feet of breccia and stalagmite, was 

 certainly not Palaeolithic, and probably the merely encrusted 

 Burrington bones were still more modern. 



1 Eeliquise Dil., p. 164. 



2 Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., 1878, p. 677. 



