﻿426 Reports and Proceedings — British Association — 



The Ash-Hole. — On the southern shore of Torbay, midway between the 

 town of Brixham and Berry Head, and about half a mile from each, there 

 is a cavern known as the Ash- Hole. It was partially explored, probably 

 about, or soon after, the time Mr. MacEnery was engaged in Kent's Hole, 

 by the late Rev. H. F. Lyte, who, unfortunately, does not appear to have 

 left any account of the results. The earliest mention of this Cavern T 

 have been able to find is a very brief one in Bellamy's ' Natural History of 

 South Devon,' published in 1839 (p. 14). During the Plymouth Meeting 

 in 1841, Mr. George Bartlett, a native of Brixham, who assisted Mr, Lyte, 

 described to this Section the objects of interest the Ash-Hole had yielded 

 (see Report Brit. Assoc. 1841, Trans. Sections, p. 61). So far as was then 

 known, the Cave was 30 yards long and 6 yards broad. Below a recent 

 accumulation, 4 feet deep, of loam and earth, with land and marine shells, 

 bones of the domestic fowl and of Man, pottery, and various implements, 

 lay a true Cav-e-earth, abounding in the remains of Elephant. Professor • 

 Owen, who identified, from this lower bed, relics of Badger, Polecat, Stoat, 

 Water-vole, Rabbit, and Reindeer, remarks, that for the first good evidence 

 of the Reindeer in this island he had been indebted to Mr. Bartlett, who 

 stated that the remains were found in this Cavern (see Brit. Foss. Mam. 

 1846, pp. 109-110, 113-114, 116, 204, 212, 479-480). I have made 

 numerous visits to the spot, which, when Mr. Lyte began his diggings, 

 must have been a shaft-like fissure, accessible from the top only. A lateral 

 opening, however, has been quarried into it ; there is a narrow tunnel 

 extending westward, in which the deposit is covered with a thick sheet of 

 stalagmite, and where one is tempted to believe that a few weeks' labour 

 might be well invested. 



Brixham Cavern. — Early in 1858 an unsuspected Cavern was broken 

 into by quarrymen at the north-western angle of Windmill Hill at Brixham, 

 at a point 75 feet above the surface of the street almost vertically below, 

 and 100 feet above mean tide. On being found to contain bones, a lease 

 in it was secured for the Geological Society of London, who appointed a 

 Committee of their members to undertake its exploration ; funds were 

 voted by the Royal Society, and supplemented by private subscriptions ; 

 the conduct of the investigation was entrusted to Mr. Prestwich and my- 

 self ; and the work, under my superintendence, as the only resident 

 member of the Committee, was begun in July 1858, and completed at 

 midsummer 1859. 



The Cavern, comprised within a space of 135 feet from north to south, 

 and 100 from east to west, consisted of a series of tunnel galleries from 6 

 to 8 feet in greatest width, and 10 to 14 feet in height, with two small 

 chambers and five external entrances. 



The deposits, in descending order, were : — 



1st, or uppermost. A Floor of Stalagmite, from a few inches to a foot 

 thick, and continuous over very considerable areas, but not throughout 

 the entire Cavern. 



2nd. A mass of small angular fragments of limestone, cemented into a 

 firm concrete with carbonate of lime, commenced at the principal entrance, 

 which it completely filled, and whence it extended 34 feet only. It was 

 termed the First Bed. 



3rd. A layer of blackish matter, about 12 feet long, and nowhere more 

 than a foot thick, occurred immediately beneath the First Bed, and was 

 designated the Second Bed. 



4th. A red, tenacious, clayey loam, containing a large number of angular 

 and subangular fragments of limestone, varying from very small bits to 

 blocks a ton in weight, made up the Third Bed. Pebbles of trap, quartz, 

 and limestone were somewhat prevalent, whilst nodules of brown hematite 

 of iron and blocks of stalagmite were occasionally met with in it. The 



