444 Mr. Austen on the 



could move along from exposed surfaces all loose materials, bones, and land-shells, 

 and which would naturally fall into such open chasms. Nor is this action of flow- 

 ing water a mere assumption ; whoever will examine the collection of materials in 

 these great open joints and fractures will be satisfied that they could have been 

 filled only in the manner here suggested ; there being in every case an admixture of 

 materials from a distance, and it is a remarkable fact that these have been derived 

 from rocks in situ, north of the places in which we find them. Thus the breccias of 

 Chudleigh contain granite and altered rocks from the sides of Dartmoor, and the 

 same phenomenon occurs at Yealmpton and Plymouth. 



The first class of caves, such as those near Torquay and others, belong to the 

 time when the country was the actual habitation of certain forms of animals now 

 extinct or foreign ; the second class contain the evidences of some subsequent 

 event, which apparently happened at the close of that period. 



The well-known Kent's Hole, near Torquay, is a large cavern in a compact limestone, and consists of 

 one large chamber, with several minor ones communicating by narrow passages, all parts being of easy 

 access. A stalagmitic crust, which appears to have covered all the lower part of the cave before it was 

 broken up in the search after remains, is still very thick in some places, and it is a curious fact that the 

 deposition of stalagmite has been subsequent to the introduction of the clay, for I have frequently worked 

 through the entire thickness of the latter and found it resting on the bare limestone. No increase to the 

 stalagmite is now being made. The mass of bones which this cave contained was very great, and must 

 have required a considerable lapse of time for its collection ; there are appearances also about many of 

 these remains which seem to indicate that they had been long exposed to the air before they were included 

 in the clay. Nearly all the specimens I possess from this cave bear the marks of teeth, and mixed with 

 them are quantities of the faces of animals which must have fed largely on bone. Human remains and 

 works of art, such as arrow-heads and knives of flint, occur in all parts of the cave and throughout the 

 entire thickness of the clay : and no distinction founded on condition, distribution, or relative position 

 can be observed, whereby the human can be separated from the other reliquiae. 



The obvious inference from this fact is at variance with the opinions generally received, and the cir- 

 cumstance of the Paviland Cave will doubtless be adduced as a solution of the diflSculty. The two 

 cases have nevertheless nothing in common. In the Paviland Cave the bones of the skeleton were 

 together, in their mutual relations, and the several implements in close juxta-position ; in the other they 

 are as above described, and there is not a single appearance which can suggest that the cave has been 

 used as a place of sepulture. 



The bones of the cave must have been gradually collected ; the clay may either have been carried in 

 at some given period, or else have been added from time to time by floods ; in the latter case there would 

 be an alternation of layers of bones with seams of clay, but we find no arrangement of the kind, and I 

 think it more probable that their confused mixture has resulted from some one event. 



The osseous remains found in Kent's Cave belong principally to the elephant, rhinoceros, ox, deer, 

 horse, bear, hyaena, and a feline animal of large size*. 



This and other similar caves, both in England and on the continent of Europe, as the celebrated Kirkdale 



* The following observations respecting the animals which occupied osseous caves were read March 

 25, 1840. 



