THTC YORKSHIRE CAYES. 63 



means complete. The cave itself is of unknown depth and ex- 

 tent, and the mere removal of so much earth and clay as it i« 

 known to contain will be a labour of years. The results of the 

 exploration to the present time (1874) are of almost equal value 

 to the archaeologist, to the historian, and to the geologist, and 

 prove how close is the bond of union between three branches of 

 human thought, which at first sight appear remote from each 

 other." 



That the historian has not been slow to avail himself of these 

 results is evidenced by the Eev. Dr. Green in his last work, 

 "The Making of England," in which the following eloquent 

 passage occurs. "Writing of the conquests of the Engle in the 

 northern counties he says, " If history tells us nothing of the 

 victories that laid this great district at the feet of its conquerors, 

 the spade of the archaeologist has done somewhat to reveal the 

 ruin and misery of the conquered people. The caves of the 

 Yorkshire moorlands preserve traces of the miserable fugitives 

 who fled to them for shelter. Such a cave opens on the side of 

 a lonely ravine beside Settle. In primal ages it had been a 

 haunt of hysenas, who dragged thither the mammoth, the rein- 

 deer, the bison, and the bear, that prowled in the neighbouring- 

 glens. At a later time it became a home for savages, whose 

 stone adzes, flint knives, and bone harpoons are still embedded 

 in its floor. But these, too, vanished in their turn, and this 

 haunt of primitive man lay lonely and undisturbed till the sword 

 of the English invaders drove the Eoman provincials for shelter 

 to the moors. The hurry of their flight may be gathered from 

 the relics their cave life has left behind it. There was clearly 

 little time to do more than to drive off the cattle, the swine, 

 the goats, whose bones lie scattered round the hearth-fire, at the 

 mouth of the cave, where they served the wretched fugitives for 

 food. The women must have buckled hastily their brooches of 

 bronze, or parti-coloured enamel, the peculiar workmanship of 

 Celtic Britain, and snatched up a few household implements, as 

 they hurried away. The men, no doubt, girded on as hastily 

 the swords, whose dainty hilts of ivory and bronze still remain 

 to tell their doom, and hiding in their breasts what money the 



