Evidence of the Caves. 39 



it, brought by the human inhabitants, and a number of stones 

 suitable for taking in the hand and striking with, which were 

 chipped along their edges in a way that leaves no doubt they 

 had been used to break the bones with. Beneath the grey 

 earth were remains of a great stalagmite floor, four feet thick in 

 places, which had crystallised. In the lower part of this, 

 which lay upon a bed of gravel, were found embedded the 

 teeth and bones of a huge bear, pronounced by Professor Busk 

 to have been the grisly bear, now confined to the Rocky Moun- 

 tains of North America. The deposits of this cave also con- 

 tained seme teeth and bones of reindeer. Thus the Ballyna- 

 mintra Cave yielded relics of three distinct ages — the neolithic, 

 with its polished stone axe and domestic animals ; then the age 

 of the elk-hunters ; and before that the time of the grisly bear. 



Within the last two years good work has been done in other 

 Irish caves by a Committee appointed by the British Associa- 

 tion, under Dr. Scharff, who has organised the movement, and 

 assigned to me the execution of the excavations. In T901 we 

 worked in caves in Keish Corran Mountain, County Sligo, in 

 which were found two distinct strata— -the uppermost of grey 

 earth, containing a stone celt, bronze pins and objects of iron, 

 abundance of charcoal, bones of domestic animals, and some 

 oyster and mussed shells. Bones of bear were also found, and 

 a shin bone of reindeer, beneath which charcoal occurred, in the 

 same stratum. This was fair evidence that the reindeer had 

 been contemporaneous with man in Ireland. The second 

 stratum was a clay in which the characteristic animal was the 

 brown bear ; but in these caves the jaws and bones of the Arctic 

 lemming were found in abundance. This was the first dis- 

 covery ot it in Ireland, and the species differs from the lemming 

 of Norway, and is not found nearer than Greenland at the 

 present day. 



During the summer of 1902 two groups of caves have 

 been excavated at Edenvale, in County Clare. In these the 

 upper stratum has, as usual, yielded in profusion charcoal, bones 

 of domestic animals, many human bones, and other relics of 



