﻿420 Reports and Proceedings — British Association — 



further noticed on this occasion. In deaUng with the others it seems most 

 simple to follow mainly the order of chronology ; that is to say, to com- 

 mence with the Cavern which first caught scientific attention, and, having 

 finished all that the time at my disposal will allow me to say about it, but 

 not before, to proceed to the next, in the order thus defined ; and so on 

 through the series. 



Oreston Caverns.- — When Mr. Whidbey engaged to superintend the con- 

 struction of the Plymouth Breakwater, Sir Joseph Banks, President of the 

 Royal Society, requested him to examine narrowly any caverns he might 

 meet with in the limestone-rock to be quarried at Oreston, near the mouth 

 of the river Plym, not more than two miles from the room in which we 

 are assemblod, and have the bones or any other fossil remains that were 

 met with carefully preserved (see Phil. Trans. 1817, pp. 176-182). This 

 request was cheerfully complied with, and Mr. Whidbey had the pleasure 

 of discovering bone-caves in November 1816, November 1820, August and 

 Nov. 1822, and of sending the remains found in them to the Royal Society. 



It is, perhaps, worthy of remark that, though Cavern-researches received 

 a great impulse from the discoveries in Kirkdale, Yorkshire, and especially 

 from Dr. Buckland's well-known and graphic descriptions of them, such 

 researches had originated many years before. The request by Sir Joseph 

 Banks was made at least as early as 1812 (see Trans. Devon. Assoc, v. jjp. 

 252, 253), and a paper on the Oreston discoveries was read to the Royal 

 Society in February 1817, whereas the Kirkdale Cavern was not discovered 

 until 1821. British Cave-hunting appears to have been a science of Devon- 

 shire birth. 



The Oreston Caverns soon attracted a considerable number of able 

 observers ; they were visited in 1822 by Dr. Buckland and Mr. Warburton ; 

 and in a comparatively short time became the theme of a somewhat volu- 

 minous literature. Nothing of importance, however, seems to have been 

 met with from 1822 until 1858, when another cavern, containing a large 

 number of bones, was broken into. Unfortunately, there was no one at 

 hand to superintend the exhumation of the specimens ; the work was left 

 entirely to the common workmen, and was badly done ; many of the 

 remains were dispersed beyond recovery ; the matrix in which they were 

 buried was never adequately examined ; and we are utterly ignorant, and 

 must for ever remain so, as to whether they did or did not contain indica- 

 tions of human existence. I visited the spot from time to time, and bought 

 up everything to be met with ; but other scientific work in another part of 

 the county occupied me too closely to allow more than an occasional visit . 

 The greater part of the specimens I secured were lodged in the British 

 Museum, where they seem to have been forgotten, whilst a few remain in 

 my private collection. 



Some difference of opinion has existed respecting the character of the 

 successive caverns, and much mystery has been imported into the question 

 of the introduction of their contents. Mr. Whidbey, it is said, " saw no 

 possibility of the cavern of 1816 having had any external communication 

 through the rock in which it was inclosed" (Phil. Trans. 1817, pp. 176- 

 182) ; but Dr. Buckland was of opinion that they were all at first fissures 

 ojjen at the toj), and " that the openings had been long filled up with 

 rubbish, mud, stalactite, or fragments of rocks cemented, as sometimes 

 happens, into a breccia as solid as the original rock, and overgrown with 

 grass" (Phil. Trans. 1822, pp. 171-240). 



The conclusion I arrived at, after studying so much of the roof of the 

 cavern of 1858 as remained intact, was that Dr. Buckland's oiainion was 

 fully borne out by the facts ; that, in short, the Oreston caverns were 

 Fissure Caverns, not Tunnel Caverns. 



The Cavern of 1858 was an almost vertical fissure, extending a length of 



