BRITISH ASSOCIATION, &G. 141 



lectures being often delivered there, the deposits were of the same general 

 character and order as in those parts of the cavern which the committee had 

 previously explored and reported upon. The Eed Cave earth, of unknown 

 depth, was completely sealed up with the stalagmitic floor, which in its turn 

 was covered with a layer of black mould. The objects found in this mould 

 were less numerous than in similar accumulations previously reported on. 

 Amongst them were : several pieces of pottery, a spindle whorl, a roughly 

 cut piece of red sandstone, a portion of a bone comb, small red earthenware 

 pan, marine shells, small piece of smelted copper, the entire lower jaw and 

 almost complete skull of a badger, part of a human upper jaw with eight 

 teeth, four of which remained in their sockets, and the internal cast of a 

 fossil shell. The articles found in the second floor, or stalagmite, included 

 a fine molar of the rhinoceros, the pr£e-molar of a hyana, two or three 

 molars of a bear, and a large part of the humerus of a bear (probably), &c. 

 Since the time of the rhinoceros, the increase in thickness of the stalagmitic 

 floor had been barely sufficient to cover these relics. A few relics of charred 

 wood were found in the same floor. The Cave Earth was reported to be of the 

 ordinary typical character ; and a description was given of the fossils found in 

 the Cave Earth, and of those entombed in the breccia mingled therewith. 

 While split-bones and bones bearing teeth-marks had been found in the Eed 

 Cave Earth, no split bones had been found in the rocky breccia. The bones 

 scored with teeth had probably been gnawed by the hysna, and the split 

 bone was an evidence of the presence of man. The breccia, which had been 

 rolled by some means into the cavern, was probably older tha,n the Eed Cave 

 Earth ; and though it had not given up any charred wood, or longitudinally- 

 split bones, yet the committee thought it would be premature to draw at 

 present any inference from this negative fact. But while the labours of the 

 past twelve months had not added anything to our knowledge concerning the 

 antiquity of man, yet up to this time no comparatively modern object had 

 been found below its place, and no ancient one had been found within the 

 modern niche. The lower floor of the stalagmite had kept the two apart. 

 Probably the ancient cave men made use of unpolished flint implements, of 

 which specimens had been found in the Eed Cave Earth, split the bones of 

 animals, employed fire in the preparation of food, and selected stones for 

 crushers or hammers. 



Mk. Pengelly then read a Paper " On the condition of Bones in Kent's 

 Cavern." He stated that bones in four different conditions were found in 

 the cavern, viz., entire, crushed, fractured, and split. The crushed bones 

 were due to blocks of breccia and stalactite falling upon them ; to hytenas 

 lie attributed the fracturing of others, in corroboration of which he produced 

 bones presenting exactly the same appearance, which had been fractured by 

 hyeenas in the Zoological Gardens ; whereas he concluded that man had split 

 the bones longitudinally to obtain the marrow, and where recent bones had 

 been split by the like agency they had a precisely similar aspect. — In the 

 discussion which ensued. Me. John Evans, while not disputing the power of 

 ancient or modern man to split bones, was of opinion that, taking the evi- 

 dence given by the bones themselves, they must have been split and gna^Ved 



