124 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 



" 1st. At the top, a layer of stalagmite, varying in thickness from 

 one to fifteen inches, which sometimes contained bones, such as 

 the reindeer's horn, already mentioned, and an entire humerus of 

 the cave-bear. 



" 2ndly. Next below, loam or bone-earth, of an ochreous-red 

 colour, from one foot to fifteen feet in thickness. 



" 3rdly. At the bottom of all, gravel with many rounded pebbles 

 in it, probed in some places to the depth of twenty feet without 

 being pierced through, and as it was barren of fossils, left for 

 the most part unremoved. 



"The mammalia obtained from the bone-earth consisted of 

 Eleplias primigenius, or mammoth ; Rhinoceros tichorhinus ; 

 Ursus sjpelceus ; Hyaena spelcea ; Felis spelcea, or the cave-lion ; 

 Cervus tarandus, or the reindeer ; a species of horse, ox, and 

 several rodents, and others not yet determined. 



" No human bones were obtained anywhere during these excava- 

 tions, but many flint knives, chiefly from the lowest part of the 

 bone-eaith; and one of the most perfect lay at the depth of thir- 

 teen feet from the surface, and was covered with bone-earth of 

 that thickness. From a similar position was taken one of those 

 siliceous nuclei, or cores, from which flint flakes had been struck 

 off on every side. Neglecting the less perfect specimens, some of 

 which were met with even in the lowest gravel, about fifteen 

 knives, recognized by the most experienced antiquaries as arti- 

 ficially formed, were taken from the bone-earth, and usually from 

 near the bottom. Such knives, considered apart from the asso- 

 ciated mammalia, afford in themselves no safe criterion of anti- 

 quity, as they might belong to any part of the age of stone, similar 

 tools being sometimes met with in tumuli posterior in date to the 

 era of the introduction of bronze. But the anteriority of those at 

 Brixham to the extinct animals is demonstrated not only by the 

 occurrence at one point in overlying stalagmite, of the bone of a 

 cave-bear, but also by the discovery at the same level in the bone- 

 eartb, and in close proximity to a very perfect flint tool, of the 

 entire left hind-leg of a cave-bear. This specimen, which was 

 shown me by Dr. Falconer and Mr. Pengelly, was exhumed from 

 the earthy deposit in the reinder gallery, near its junction with 

 the flint-knife gallery, at the distance of about sixty-five feet from 

 the main entrance. The mass of earth containing it was removed 

 entire, and the matrix cleared away carefully by Dr. Falconer, in 

 the presence of Mr. Pengelly. Every bone was in its natural 



