594 PRIMEVAL MAX, 



VII. 



To revert to the general cave investigation. It has been 

 already mentioned that the Grower caverns presented con- 

 ditions favourable for determining some of the doubtful ques- 

 tions, such as are nowhere else to be found in England, from 

 the fact of their floors being covered by marine deposits con- 

 taining shells. The only corresponding case in Europe then 

 generally known was the celebrated ossiferous cavern of San 

 Ciro, near Palermo, described by the Abbate Scina, Hoffmann, 

 and Turnbull-Christie, which I determined to examine before 

 making public the results arrived at regarding the geological 

 age of the English caves. The Gower caves had also yielded 

 in considerable variety and abundance relics of man, both 

 osseous and industrial, the latter consisting of wrought flints, 

 bone-weapons or implements, and ivory ornaments. These 

 had been discovered chiefly in the Paviland Cave, above or 

 below the skeleton of the ' Eed Lady of Gower,' celebrated 

 through the researches of Dr. Buckland. I became early 

 familiar with every form in which they occur, in the original 

 collections preserved in Gower, and formed at the time of 

 the exploration. My fellow-labourer and friend, Colonel 

 Wood, had amassed a considerable collection of wrought 

 flints and bone-weapons, a part of which were subsequently 

 the product of our repeated joint visits to the cavern. He 

 had also discovered human bones in ' Spritsail-Tor ' Cave, 

 and in the ossiferous fissure of ' Mewslade.' I was acquainted, 

 from observations made on the spot, with the extinct mam- 

 malia with which they were associated, and with the circum- 

 stances under which they occurred. After the arrangements 

 for carrying on the exploration of the Brixham Cave were 

 completed I left England for Sicily, at the end of October 

 1858, taking Montpellier in my route, in order to study the 

 cave collections of the south of Prance, and the human re- 

 mains investigated by Christol, Tournal, Marcel de Serres, 

 &c, which had been the subject of such contested discussion 

 thirty years before. I then proceeded to Mce, to examine the 

 brecciated mass of human bones discovered near St. Hospice, 

 and thence to the ' Baussi-Baussi ' or Kocco Rosso caverns, 

 near Mentone, which have yielded such abundant relics of 

 long-continued human occupation, upon the exploration of 

 M. Prancois Porel. On reaching Palermo I found that the 

 contents of the San Ciro cavern had been so disturbed 

 during the operation of the Government Commission, under 

 the direction of Abbate Scina in 1830, that not a trace of the 

 marine deposit, originally found upon the floor, could be de- 

 tected, in consequence of the materials having been thrown 

 up in a confused mass of talus, extending backwards to near 



