566 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol.. II.. No. ns. 



material respect from those of Lundreds of others, 

 wliether of lead, copper, silver, or iron, worked in 

 Kom.-iii and pre-Eoinan times in all parts of Europe. 

 Its tiinnels have all been regularly quarried and 

 rained, not by ancient seas, hut by the hands of his- 

 toric man. Double openings Lave been made in 

 every case for convenient ingress and egress during 

 the process of excavation. Its roadways had been 

 levelled, and holes made up with breccia, gravel, sand, 

 and bones of beasts that had succumbed to toil, on 

 which sledges, trolleys, and wagons could glide or 

 run. . . . Near the entrance inside Victoria Cave 

 were found the usual beds of charcoal, and the 

 hearths for refining the metal; while close by, on 

 the hillside, may still be seen the old kilns in which 

 the men ' roasted' the metallic ores, and burned lime." 



Should any one he disposed to ascribe these arti- 

 cles to some master of the art of joking, it need only 

 be replied that they appeared in a religious journal 

 (The champion of the faith ar/ainst current iitfidelity 

 for April 20 and May 11, IS82, vol. i. pp. 5 and 20), 

 with the writer's name appended, and that I have 

 reason to believe they were written seriously and in 

 earnest. 



It has been already intimated thatBrixham Cavern 

 has secured a somewhat p7-oniinent place in liter- 

 ature; and it can scarcely be needful to add that 

 some of the printed statements respecting it are not 

 quite correct. The following instances of inaccuracy 

 may be taken as samples; — 



The late Professor Ansted, describing Brixham 

 Cavern in 1861, said, "In the middle of the cavern, 

 under stalagmite itself, and actually entangled with 

 an antler of a reindeer and the bones of the great 

 cavern-bear, were found rude sculptured flints, such 

 as are known to have been used by savages in most 

 parts of the world " (' Geological gossip,' p. 209). 



To be 'entangled' with one another, the antler, 

 the hones of the cave-bear, and the flints, must have 

 been all lying together. As a matter of fact, how- 

 ever, the antler was on the upper surface of the sheet 

 of stalagmite, while all the relics of the cave-bear, 

 and all the flints, were in detrital beds below that 

 sheet. Again: the flints nearest the bear's bones in 

 question were two in number: they were twelve feet 

 south of the bones, and fifteen inches less deep in 

 the b^d. There was no approach to entanglement. 



Should it be suggested that it is scarcely necessary 

 to correct errors on scientific questions in works like 

 ' Geological gossip,' professedly popular and intend- 

 ed for the million, I should venture to express the 

 opinion that the strictest accuracy is specially re- 

 quired in such books, as the great majority of their 

 readers are entirely at the mercy of the compilers. 

 Those who read scientific books of a higher class are 

 much more capable of taking care of themselves. 



Professor x\nsted's slip found its way into a scien- 

 tific joiunal, where it was made the basis of a specu- . 

 lation (see Geotof/ist, 1801, p. 210). 



The most recent notewortliy inaccuracies connect- 

 ed with this famous cavern are, so far as I am aware, 

 two in the English edition of Prof. N. Joly's 'Man 

 before metals ' (1883). 



According to the first, "an entire left hind-leg of 

 Ursus spelaeus was found lying above the incrusta- 

 tion of stalagmite which covered tlie hones of other 

 extinct species and the carved flints" (p. 52). 



It is only necessary, in reply to this, to repeat what 

 has been already stated: all the bones of cave-hear 

 found in the cavern were in beds below the stalag- 

 mite. 



Tlie following quotation from the same work con- 

 tains the second inaccuracy, or, more correctly, group 

 of inaccuracies, mentioned above : " We may mention, 

 among others, the cave at Brixham, where, associated 

 with fragments of rude pottery, and bones of extinct 

 species, heaps of oyster-shells and other salt-water 

 mollusks occur, as well as fish-hones of the genus Sca- 

 rus" (p. 104). 



I am afraid there is no way of dealing with this 

 paragraph except that of meeting all its statements 

 with unqualified denials. In short, Brixham Wind- 

 mill-hill Cavern contained no pottery of any kind 

 whatever, not a single oyster-sliell, nor even a solitary 

 bone of any species of fish. One common limpet- 

 shell was the only relic of a marine organism met 

 with in the cavern. 



As already intimated, the result of the researches 

 at Brixham quickened a desire to re-examine the 

 Kent's Cavern evidence; and tliis received a consid- 

 erable stimulus from the imblication of Sir C. Lyell's 

 'Antiquity of man' in 180.3. Having in the mean 

 time made a careful survey of the cavern, and ascer- 

 tained tliat there was a very large area in which the 

 deposits were certainly intact, to say nothing of un- 

 suspected branches which in all probability would be 

 discovered during a thorough and systematic explora- 

 tion, I bad arrived at the conclusion, that, taking the 

 cavern at its known dimensions merely, the cost of 

 an investigation as com])lete as that at Brixham 

 would not be less than £1,000. 



Early in 1864 I suggested to Sir C. Lyell that an ap- 

 plication should be made to the British association, 

 during the meeting to be held at Bath that year, for 

 the appointment of a committee, with a grant of 

 money, to make an exploration of Kent's Cavern ; 

 and it was decided that I should take the necessary 

 steps in the matter. Tlie proposal being cordially re- 

 ceived by the committee of the Geological section^ 

 and well supported in the committee of recommenda- 

 tions, a committee — consisting of Sir C. Lyell, Mr. 

 J. Evans, Mr. (now Sir) J. Lubbock, Prof. J. Phil- 

 lips, Mr. E. Vivian, and myself (honorable secretary 

 and reporter) — was appointed, with £100 placed at 

 its disposal. Mr. G. Busk was added to the com- 

 mittee in ISOG, Mr. W. Boyd Dawklns in 1808, Mr. 

 W. Ayshford Sanford in 1^09, and Mr. .1. E. Lee in 

 187:^. The late Sir L. Palk (afterwards Lord Hal- 

 don), the proprietor, placed the cavern entirely under 

 the control of the committee during the continuance 

 of tlie work. The investigation was begun on March 

 28, ISO."), and continued without intermission to .lune 

 19, 1880, the committee being annually re-appolnted, 

 with fresh grants of money, which in the aggregate 

 amounted to £1,900, besides £C3 received from vari- 

 ous private sources. 



