THE BONE CAVE AT PORT KENNEDY, PENNSYLVANIA, AND ITS 

 PARTIAL EXCAVATION IN 1894, 1895, AND 1896. 



By Henry C. Mercer. 



In 1871, and again twenty-two years later in 1893, the quarrymen at Archibald 

 Erwin's quarry (in the ordovician limestone, overlaid by triassic shale, on the right 

 bank of the Schuylkill two miles below Valley Forge), blasted into a chasm, about 

 thirty feet below the surface, full of the remains of pleistocene mammals, reptiles, 

 batrachians, insects and plants. 



When invited by Dr. Samuel G. Dixon in 1894 x to join him in the continuation 

 of the excavation of the cave for the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 

 I learned that the site in question was but one of a series of subterranean fissures, 

 opened at the quarry by a process of blasting, which in forty years from .its beginning 

 (by John Kennedy in 1855) had transformed a gently sloping hillside into an amphi- 

 theatre several acres in extent, walled with perpendicular escarpments of rock some- 

 times a hundred feet high. After the demolition of an open chamber, 2 a series of 

 galleries, often filled with sand and clay, 3 though never found to contain fossils, were 



1 In 1894, after an interim of twenty-three years, the attention of Dr. Dixon was called to the possible 

 presence of fossil remains in the quarry by Mr. D. N. McCadden, who presented him with a tooth of a Megalonyx 

 from an adjoining dump heap. Dr. Dixon, on visiting the cave, recovered from the undisturbed deposit teeth 

 of a tapir and other mammals. He immediately began, assisted by Mr. Samuel N. Rhoads and Mr. McCadden, 

 to excavate the fissure, arranging with me subsequently to superintend the work at the quarry. I take pleasure 

 in acknowledging the help rendered by Professor Cope, the financial assistance given by Mr. Clarence B. Moore, 

 and the painstaking labor of our assistant, Mr. William H. Witte. 



2 The opinion of eye witnesses is, that the large room referred to, from ten to twelve feet high, and for a 

 time after its discovery used as a place for dancing and picnics, existed near the spot where the quarry pump- 

 house now (1898) stands. Mr. E. B. Conard, carried into the cave in his grandfather's arms, remembers plenty 

 of stalactites, a smooth floor and small passages leading to other chambers. Miss Isabella Loughin, who with 

 Captain James Long and Mr. Andrews, danced there one evening in 1848, recollects well-swept clay floors and 

 smaller rooms large enough to stand in, lighted with candles. According to her, Alexander Hill, costumed as 

 King William, rode into the cave one Orange day on a white horse. 



3 The contours of eight, possibly nine subterranean galleries, were, in November, 1897, still traceable at 

 the quarry, five of which were filled to the roof with clay and sand. Of these 1 examined (1) a fissure exposed on 

 the east quarry wall only 33 feet north from the bone-bearing chasm and evidently a bifurcation of it, filled to 

 its roof with sand and clay unmixed with stones, and deposited in waving films, but revealing no black stratum, 

 and no trace of vegetable or animal remains, (2) a similar but larger fissure, much obscured by quarry refuse, 

 about 35 feet farther to the north, (3) a rift full of stratified sand with very little clay, revealed on the quarry 

 face under the cart track just opposite to and about twenty feet west of the fossiliferous fissure, (4) a bank of 

 similarly stratified sand, representing the contents of a larger gallery close to the present (1898) pump hole, and 

 against the quarry wall about twelve feet to the south of the " bone hole." 



All of the above choked fissures showed remnants of water-worn faces of cave walls against the quarry 

 escarpment ; but, though doubtless connected with the neighboring bone chasm and filled with debris at or 

 before the time of the filling of the latter, none of them revealed the ingredient of mixed stones, or showed a 

 trace of vegetable or animal remains. 



To the westward, nearly opposite the " bone hole," and doubtless closely related to it, (4) an open chasm 

 half full of water of unascertained depth was discovered some years before our coming by the quarrymen, extend- 

 ing far below the quarry floor. After its long use as a receptacle for dump, its entrance, about six feet high, 

 was closed with logs to prevent accidents to the cart horses. 



The blasting in 1895 opened (5) a circular chamber about 15 feet in diameter, and 10 feet high at the north- 

 western end of the quarry and about 300 feet from the bone deposit. It was floored with very fine grained red 

 clay, which, judging from pendants of similar clay hanging from its ceiling, infiltrating through the pores of the 



