372 Ezploration of Kent’s Cavern, Devonshire. 
Art. XLIV.—Zxploration of Kent's Cavern, Devonshire: Report 
of the Committee of the British Association, consisting of Sir 
Cuartes LYELL, Bart., Professor PHILLIPS, Sir JoHN Lus- 
Bock, Bart., Mr. Jonn Evans, Mr. Epwarp VIVIAN, and 
Mr. WILLIAM PENGELLY (Reporter).* 
Tue celebrated Kent’s Cavern, or Kent’s Hole, is about a mile 
due east from Torquay harbor. It is situated in a small, wooded, 
limestone hill on the western side of a valley which, about half 
a mile to the south, terminates on the northern shore of Torbay. 
The hills which surround the district consist of limestone, 
six feet high and eight feet wide at the base. The southern is 
a natural and tolerably symmetrical arch, 93 feet wide at the 
base, and six feet high. Its form is due partly to a gentle curva- 
ture of the strata—the apex of the opening being in the anticli- 
nal axis—and partly to the actual removal, by natural causes, 
of portions of the limestone beds; the base of the opening, or 
chord of the arc, consists of undisturbed limestone; so that the 
entrance may be aptly compared to the mouth of an oven. 
From the time of the researches and discoveries which, forty 
€ co 
feet lower. 
The cavern has been known from time immemorial. Even 
tradition fails to reach back to the date of its discovery. It did 
* From the Report of the British Association for 1865. 
of the Ordnance Survey in the road from Torquay to Ilsham 
2 OT. 
no 
pees meric, the base of the northern entrance of the cavern is 575 feet above 
