﻿428 Reports and Proceedings — British Association— 



2 feet in greatest thickness, and at its base 123 feet above sea-level. In 

 the face of it lay several fine relics of the ordinary Cave Mammals, includ- 

 ing an entire left lower jaw of Hycena spelcea replete with teeth, but which 

 had nevertheless failed to arrest the attention of the incurious workmen 

 who exposed it, or of any one else. 



Soon after the resumption of the work in 1861, the remnant of the outer 

 wall of the fissure was removed, and caused the fall of an incoherent part 

 of the dyke, which it had previously supported. Amongst the debris the 

 workmen collected some hundreds of specimens of skulls, jaws, teeth, 

 vertebrae, portions of antlers, and bones, but no indications of Man. Mr. 

 Wolston, the proj^rietor, sent some of the choicest specimens to the 

 British Museum, and submitted the remainder to Mr. Ayshford Sanford, 

 F G.S., from whom I learn that the principal portion of them are relics of 

 the Cave Hyeena, from the unborn whelp to very aged animals. With 

 them, however, were remains of Bear, Reindeer, Ox, Hare, Arvicola rat- 

 ticeps, A. agrestis, Wolf, Fox, and part of a single maxillary with teeth not 

 distinguishable from those of Canis isatis. To this list I may add Rhino- 

 ceros, of which Mr. Wolston showed me at least one bone. 



From the foregoing undesirably, but unavoidably, brief descriptions, it 

 will be seen that the Devonshire Caverns, to which attention has been 

 now directed, belong to two classes, — those of Oreston, the Ash-Hole, and 

 Bench being Fissure Caves ; whilst those of Yealm Bridge, Windmill Hill 

 at Brixham, Kent's Hole, and Ansty's Cove are Timnel Caves. 



Windmill Hill and Kent's Hole Caverns have alone been satisfactorily 

 explored ; and besides them none have yielded evidence of the contem- 

 poraneity of Man with the extinct Cave Mammals. 



Oreston is distinguished as the only known British Cavern which has 

 yielded remains of Rhinoceros leptorhimis (Q. Journ. Geol. Soc. xxvi. p. 456). 



Yealm Bridge Cavern, if we may accejDt Mr. Bellamy's identification 

 in 1835, was the first in this country in which relics of Glutton were 

 found (South Devon Monthly Museum, vi. pp. 218-223 ; see also Nat. 

 Hist. S Devon, 1839, p. 89). The same species was found in the Caves 

 of Somerset and Glamorgan in 1865 (Pleist. Mam., Pal. Soc. pp. xxi, xxiii, 

 in Kent's Hole in 1869 (Rep. Brit. Assoc. 1869, p. 207), and near Plas 

 Heaton, in North Wales, 1870 (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. xxvii. p. 407). 



Kent's Hole is the only known British Cave which has afforded remains 

 of Beaver (Rep. Brit. Assoc. 1869, p. 208), and, up to the present year, 

 the only one in which the remains of Machairodus latidens had been met 

 with. Indeed, Mr. MacEnery's statement, that he found in 1826 five 

 canines and one incisor of this species in the famous Torquay Cavern, was 

 held by many palaeontologists to be so very remarkable as, at least, to 

 approach the incredible, until the Committee now engaged in the ex- 

 ploration exhumed, in 1872, an incisor of the same species, and, thereby 

 confirmed the announcement made by their distinguished predecessor 

 nearly half a century before (Rep. Brit. Assoc. 1872, p. 46). In April last 

 (1877) the Rev. J. M. Mello was able to inform the Geological Society of 

 London that Derbyshire had shared with Devon the honour of having 

 been a home of Machairodus latidens, he having found its canine tooth in 

 Robin Hood Cave in that county, and that there, as in Kent's Hole, it was 

 commingled with remains of the Cave Hyaena and his contemporaries 

 (Abs. Proc. Geol. Soc. No. 334, pp. 3, 4). 



The Ash Hole, as we have already seen, affords the first good evidence of 

 a British Reindeer. 



In looking at the published Reparts on the two famous Torbay Caverns, 

 it will be found that they have certain points, of resemblance as well as 

 some of dissimilarity : — 



1st. The lowest known bed in each is composed of materials which. 



