OSSIFEROUS CAVE OF BRIXHAM. 489 



other similar cases, the principal deposit of fossil bones may 

 be looked for under the stalagmitic floor not yet touched. 



' The strip of hill, in which the openings of the cave are, 

 belongs to Mr. Philip Dyer, of Brixham, of moderate circum- 

 stances in the industrial walk of life, who appeared to be 

 quite open to an offer from any quarter to lease the cavern 

 for exploration. Taking into account the vast richness of 

 Kent's Hole in fossil remains, the dispersion of Mr. McEnery's 

 collections, and the grievous fate of the MS. labours of 

 about twenty years of his life, it is submitted to the Council 

 whether there is not a prospect of equal wealth in this 

 promising and adjoining cave of Brixham, and whether the 

 case is not one deserving of a combined effort among Geologists 

 to organize operations for having it satisfactorily explored, 

 before mischief is done by untutored zeal and desultory work. 



' The importance of following up a case of this description 

 has been forced upon my attention by some of the results of 

 an examination of the cave-bone collections both in England 

 and abroad, in connection with the investigation of the dis- 

 tribution of the extinct Proboscidea in the European upper 

 tertiary deposits. I have during the last twelve months been 

 more or less occupied with the conditions under which 

 Elephant remains occur in the caves ; and having lately 

 returned from a tour, in company with my friend the Bev. 

 R, Everest, during which we have made a reconnaissance 

 survey of the caves in, or cave collections from, the neigh- 

 bourhood of Bristol, the Mendips, Devonshire, South Wales, 

 Kirkdale, and Cefn, some of the results have appeared of 

 sufficient interest to justify my trespassing on the attention 

 of the Council with this communication. 



' Of these I may mention the following : — 



' 1st. The detection in considerable abundance in certain 

 of the caves of the remains of a species of Rhinoceros, 

 equally distinct from the tichorhine species of Siberia, and of 

 the Glacial period generally, and from the leptorhine Rhi- 

 noceros of Cuvier, of the Sub-Apennines, Elephant-bed, and 

 Lacustrine deposits of the Norfolk coast. 1 I have seen nearly 

 the entire series of the upper and lower teeth in situ in the 

 jaws, and from one of the caves a considerable portion of the 

 skeleton associated with teeth and cranial fragments. The 

 characters distinctive of this form from the species above 

 referred to are so pronounced and so constant," and the 

 materials so abundant, that I have no doubts on the subject. 2 



1 Dr. Falconer had not at this time 

 distinguished between the true B. lep- 

 torhiiiKS (B. megarhinus) and B. Etrus- 

 ous. (See antca, pp. 314, 348.) — [Ed.] 



tion of the remains I find that the spe- 

 cies (Bhinoceros priscus) is equally dis- 

 tinct from the existing African species 

 and from Bh. leptorMnus aud Bh. ticlwr- 



• Having gone into a detailed examina- ' hinus. — H. F., Oct. 20, 1858. 



