1 871.] A Geological Problem. 2>33> 



in 1842 under the general title of " The Geology of the 

 South-East of Devonshire."* In his description of Kent's 

 Cavern, Torquay, he says, " Few, I imagine, who are 

 acquainted with the facts which the labours of MM. Schmer- 

 ling, Marcel de Serres, and others have established, entertain 

 any doubts as to the fact that the bones of man have been 

 found in caves; what I wish to state distinctly is, that they 

 occur in Kent's Cavern under precisely the same conditions 

 as the bones of all the other animals. The value of such a 

 statement must rest on the care with which a collector may 

 have explored ; I must, therefore, state that my own 

 researches were constantly conducted in parts of the cave 

 which had never been disturbed, and in every instance the 

 bones were procured from beneath a thick covering of 

 stalagmite ; so far, then, the bones and works of man must 

 have been introduced into the cave before the flooring 

 of stalagmite had been formed. It may be suggested that 

 this cave was used as a place of sepulture by some early 

 inhabitants of this country, and that bones of the other 

 animals occupied the lower parts of the cave when such 

 sepulture took place. 



" In this case our researches should expose the human 

 skeletons entire, as in the Paviland Cave; or at least the 

 bones should occur in some sort of mutual relation to each 

 other, but no such thing has ever been observed by any ex- 

 plorer in Kent's Hole ; so that as far as the evidence from 

 this case is to be our guide, .... there is no ground 

 why we should separate man from that period, and those 

 accidents, when and by which the cave was filled. "t 



In a discussion at the Plymouth meeting of the British 

 Association, in July, 1841, the same geologist, according to the 

 "Athenaeum," % said, "at Kent's Hole, near Torquay, arrows 

 and knives of flint, with human bones, in the same condition 

 as the elephant and other bones, were found in an undisturbed 

 bed of clay, covered by 9 feet of stalagmite." Dr. Buckland, 

 in reply, " contended that human remains had never been 

 found under such circumstances as to prove their contem- 

 poraneous existence with the hyaenas and bears of the 

 caverns. In Kent's Hole the Celtic knives and human bones 

 were found in holes dug by art, and which had disturbed the 

 floor of the cave and the bones below it." 



Dr. Buckland's reply is chiefly valuable as showing that 

 Mr. Austen was correctly reported. The " holes dug by 



* Trans. Geol. Soc, 2nd Ser., vol. vi., part 2, pp. 433 — 489. 



f Op. cit., p. 446. 



J Athenaeum, Aug. 14, 1841, p. 626. 



