PLEISTOCENE CAVE-DEPOSITS. 



93 



this bed is neither more nor less than the old hearth on which 

 his wood-fire burned, where he cooked his meals and warmed 

 himself. Mr. Pengelly is of opinion that the men of the black 

 band and cave-earth were a race further advanced in civilisation 

 than the barbarians whose implements are got in the old breccia. 

 The former, he reminds us, " made bone tools and ornaments — 

 harpoons for spearing fish, eyed needles or bodkins for stitching 

 skins together, awls perhaps to facilitate the passage of the 

 slender needle through the tough, thick hides, pins for fastening 

 the skins they wore, and perforated badgers' teeth for necklaces 

 or bracelets." But nothing of this kind occurs in the breccia ; 

 the only implements found at that low level consisting of flint 

 or chert, and being of a much ruder character than the worked 

 flints of the cave-earth. 



Thus all the evidence conspires to show the prolonged 

 duration of the Old Stone Age, so far as that is represented in 

 Kent's Cavern. We have first to take into consideration the 

 time required for the gradual introduction of the basement- 

 deposits of red grit and sand by running- water ; then we have 

 to conceive of a change in the hydrographical conditions of the 

 neighbourhood, when the stream that now and then entered the 

 cave was no longer able to do so ; next we have to realise as best 

 we can the length of time that is implied by the thick crystal- 

 line stalagmite. How many long centuries rolled past while that 

 old pavement was slowly accreting no one can say, but that it 

 represents a lapse of ages compared to which the time embraced 

 by all tradition and written history is but as a few months, who 

 that is competent to form an opinion can doubt ? After a pro- 

 longed period of quiescence, water once more entered the cavern 

 and re-excavated the older deposits ; and after this process had 

 ceased, mud and silt were spread at intervals over the floor of 

 the cave by intermittent inundations. From this time on to the 

 accumulation of the upper bed of stalagmite, the cave, as we 

 have seen, was frequented by many animals, whose remains are 

 not met with in the old breccia, while the men who now and 

 then occupied the place appear to have been further advanced 



