AND HIS COTEMPORAEIES. 591 



fossil bones in England, public or private, bearing on the 

 question. In the spring of 1858, while thus occupied, I 

 made an excursion to the cave districts of the Mendip hills, 

 Devonshire, and South Wales, in company with my friend 

 the Rev. Robert Everest, with whom I have been associated 

 in similar objects, off and on, during thirty years. At Tor- 

 quay, when examining ' Kent's Hole,' we heard of the recent 

 discovery of a new cave near Brixham, where we proceeded 

 on the 17th April, after receiving from Mr. Pengelly every 

 information that he could give us for our guidance. The 

 cave was then intact. We examined it, and made overtures 

 to the owner about an arrangement to explore it. On my 

 return to London, being then on its Council, I addressed a 

 letter regarding the Brixham Cave to the Secretary of the 

 Geological Society, dated the 10th May, 1868. ' The following 

 is a condensed abstract of its contents : — 



The decline of interest among geologists in the cave ques- 

 tion since the time of the ' Reliquiae Diluvianse ' of Buckland 

 — the backward and unsettled state of opinion respecting the 

 age of the ossiferous caverns — the erroneous views commonly 

 entertained on the subject in the cave districts, and the evil 

 effects resulting therefrom — the imperfect manner in which 

 cave explorations had hitherto been conducted in most in- 

 stances in England — the huddling together in collections of 

 the fossil specimens without reference to the order in which 

 they occurred — the dispersion of some of the most important 

 and classical of English collections — the necessity of retriev- 

 ing past mischief and past errors, by the carefully organized 

 exploration of a virgin cave — a description of the newly-dis- 

 covered cave at Brixham as it then stood, and the favour- 

 able opportunity which it offered. The necessity was urged 

 ' of a combined effort among geologists to organize operations 

 for having it satisfactorily explored, before mischief is done 

 by untutored zeal and desultory work.' 



In order to give weight to the appeal, I communicated 

 some of the new and unpublished results, to which my in- 

 quiry so far had led : — 



1. The detection 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 

 distinct also from the leptorhine Rhinoceros of Cuvier, of 

 the Sub-Apennine ' Elephant-bed ' and lacustrine deposits of 

 the Norfolk coast. This is the species now known as Rhi- 

 noceros hemitoechus, Pale. 



2. Abundant evidence in all the cave districts of two 

 extinct species of Elephant ; viz. E.primigenius of the Glacial 



1 See antca, p. 4S7.— [Ed.] 



