W. Pengelly— Cavern Exploration in Devonshire. 308 
when he had the good fortune to discover a flint implement ; 
the first instance, he tells us, of such a relic being noticed in 
any cavern (see Trans. Devon. Assoc., iii, p. 441). Before the 
close of 1825, he commenced a series of more or less systematic 
diggings, and continued them until, and perhaps after, the 
summer of 1829 (ibid., p. 295). Preparations appear to have 
been made to publish the results of his labors; a prospectus 
was issued, numerous plates were lithographed, it was generally 
believed that the MS. was almost ready, and the only thing 
needed was a list of subscribers sufficient to justify publication, 
when, alas! on February 18, 1841, before the printer had 
received any “copy,” before even the world of science had 
accepted his anthropological discoveries, before the value of 
his labors was known to more than a very few, Mr. MacEnery 
died at Torquay. 
After his decease his MS. could not be discovered, and its 
loss was duly deplored. Nevertheless, it was found after 
several years, and, having undergone varieties of fortune, 
became the property of Mr. Vivian, of Torquay, who, having 
ublished portions of it in 1859, presented it in 1867 to the 
orquay Natural History Society, whose property it still 
remains. In 1869 I had the pleasure of printing the whole, in 
the Transactions of the Devonshire Association. 
_ Whilst Mr. MacEnery was conducting his researches, a few 
independent diggings, on a less extensive scale, were taken by 
other gentlemen. The principal of these was Mr. Godwin- 
Austen, the well-known geologist, whose papers fully bore out 
all that MacEnery had stated. (See Trans. Geol. Soc. Lond., 
2d series, vi, 446). In 1846, a sub-committee of the Torquay 
Natural History Society undertook the careful exploration of 
very small parts of the cavern, and their report was entirely 
confirmatory of the statements of their predecessor—that un- 
doubted flint implements did occur, mixed with the remains of 
extinct mammals, in the cave-earth, beneath a thick floor of 
stalagmite. The sceptical position of the authorities in geologi- 
cal science remained unaffected, however, until 1858, when the 
discovery and systematic exploration of a comparatively small 
virgin cavern on Windmill Hin, at Brixham, led to a sudden 
and complete revolution; for it was seen that whatever were . 
the facts elsewhere, there had undoubtedly been found at Brix- 
ham flint implements commingled with remains of the mam- 
moth and his companions, and in such a way as to render it 
impossible to doubt that man occupied Devonshire before the 
extinction of the cave mammals. 
Under the feeling that the statements made by MacEnery and 
his followers respecting Kent’s Hole were perhaps, after all, to 
be accepted as verities, the British Association, in 1864, ap- 
