Caves, Creswell Crags. 467 



cannot deny that it may just as well be part of the 

 fibula of a bear. 



On a point such as this, though I have been in the 

 cave, I have no claim to form an opinion, but subse- 

 quent paragraphs will show that though at present the 

 question has not been decided by the evidence yielded 

 by the Victoria Cave, there are yet grounds for the 

 certain belief, that man in the British area lived in 

 inter-Glacial and probably even in pre-Glacial times. 



The next caves I shall mention are, like the Vic- 

 toria Cave, of unusual importance, because of their con- 

 tents and the careful manner in which they have been 

 explored by the Rev. J. Magens Mello and Mr, Thomas 

 Heath, assisted in the determination of species by 

 Professor Boyd Dawkins. These caverns occur in the 

 Magnesian Limestone (Permian ) of Creswell Crags in 

 Derbyshire, about ten miles ENE. of Chesterfield, and 

 two miles SSE. of Whitwell. Three of the explored 

 caves are known by the names of Robin Hood's Cave, 

 the Pin Hole, and Church Hole. 



In the first-named the layers consist in descending 

 order of : 



1. Stalagmite, 2ft. 



2. Breccia, with bones and flint implements, 1 ft. 6 in. 



3. Cave-earth, with bones and implements, 1 ft. 9 in. 



4. Mottled bed, with bones and implements, 2 ft. 



5. Red sand, with bones and quartzite implements. 



The upper soil in the cavern 'yielded traces of 

 Romano-British occupation, such as enamelled bronze 

 fibulae, fragments of pottery,' &c. ' In the surface soil and 

 in the upper part of the Breccia (No. 2\ there occur 

 some bones of the domestic hog, goat, sheep, and Celtic 

 shorthorn, but no implements of a Neolithic type were 

 found associated with these.' Beneath this upper part, 

 H H 2 



