434 Rev. W. S. Si/monds — Hycena-den near Boss. ■ 



A remarkable feature in the geology of the district is owing to the 

 fact that the channel of the Wye now runs between the gorge of 

 Symonds Yat and Whitchurch, and cuts off the Doward Hills, and 

 Coppet Wood Hill, which thus may be said to be outliers of Car- 

 boniferous Limestone, from the great mass of Carboniferous strata 

 which constitute the area of the Forest of Dean. There is evidence, 

 as we shall see, that the Wye once flowed at a much higher level 

 than now. For ages it has been deepening its channel, and dark 

 craggy cliffs of Mountain limestone, clothed with the foliage of 

 numerous trees, now rise high above its waters. 



King Arthur's Cave does not open out upon the river Wye, as 

 many of the caves and fissures do in the limestone escarpments, 

 but opens at right angles to the flow of the river, and the entrance 

 looks towards Monmouth, and the hill of the Little Doward on the 

 west. Some years ago, when visiting this cave in company with a 

 hermit cave-dweller known as " Jack the Slipper," I was struck with 

 the accumulation of cave earth in the interior, and endeavoured to 

 obtain leave to make some excavations, but without success. In the 

 mean time the site on which this cave is situated became the property 

 of the Crown ; and in 1870, some miners engaged in the search for 

 iron ore had removed a good deal of the surface soil and upper cave 

 earth in the interior of the cave. During these excavations several 

 fossil bones were discovered ; and a tooth of the fossil horse (Equus 

 fossilis) was forwarded to me by Mr. Fryer, of Coleford, who was 

 thus the first person who detected the existence of fossil bones in 

 King Arthur's Cave. During the summer. Sir James Campbell 

 visited the excavations, and forwarded a number of bones to London 

 for examination by Prof. Owen, who at once pronounced them to be 

 the relics of Mammoth, Ehinoceros, and Horse; also, that it was 

 evident, from the state of the bones, that the cave had been the 

 resort of hyaenas, as many had evidently been dragged in and gnawed. 

 This information I communicated last year at the Meeting of the 

 British Association at Liverpool. It now remains to state briefly 

 what has been done in the excavations I have superintended during 

 the present summer of 1871. 



Having obtained permission through Sir James Campbell, the 

 Gaveller of Dean Forest, to whom I am also indebted for kind 

 assistance in furthering the explorations, and furnished with funds 

 by the Malvern Field Club and a few personal friends, we com- 

 menced operations on the 7th of June, and on successive occasions 

 careful examinations have been carried on. 



At our first meeting we were accompanied by Mr. Boyd Dawkins, 

 well known for his osteological researches ; and he was soon enabled 

 to determine many bones, jaws, and teeth as they were exhumed 

 from the cave earth, and which belonged to the great Carnivores and 

 Euminants which once inhabited the country round the cave. 



I soon found, however, that, owing to the disturbance of the soil 

 in the interior of the cave by miners, it would be necessary to 

 institute a series of excavations and cuttings in order to arrive at 

 any definite result as to the true position of the cave deposits. In 



