PALAEONTOLOGY 



THE centre of interest in regard to the vertebrate palseontology 

 of Devonshire is formed by the fossil remains obtained from the 

 caves and cavernous fissures on the south coast : these cavern 

 deposits being the first which were scientifically examined in 

 Britain, and the first to afford evidence of the co-existence of man with 

 the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros and other extinct Pleistocene mam- 

 mals. Two of the most energetic workers in this field of research in the 

 county were the late Rev. J. MacEnery and the late Mr. W. Pengelly, 

 but many other palaeontologists took a prominent part in this important 

 investigation. 



The earliest discovery of the occurrence of mammaliferous cave 

 deposits in the county appears to have been made in 1 8 1 6 by Mr. 

 Whidbey, at that time in charge of the works connected with the 

 Plymouth breakwater.^ From the now well known cavernous fissures 

 at Oreston near Plymouth that gentleman obtained numerous bones and 

 teeth of large mammals, which were submitted to Sir Everard Home, by 

 whom they were brought to the notice of the Royal Society in 1817, 

 four years previous to Dean Buckland's announcement of the discovery 

 of fossil bones in Kirkdale Cave, Yorkshire. Other remains, including 

 those of the lion, cave hyjena, Merck's rhinoceros and mammoth, were 

 obtained from fissures in the neighbourhood at later dates, some of 

 these and of the original specimens being described in Owen's British 

 Fossil Mammals and Birds. 



Other cavernous fissures near Yealmpton, about seven miles from 

 Plymouth, were explored in the years 1835 and 1836 by Mr. Bellamy 

 and Colonel Mudge, and yielded remains of similar animals.* It has 

 been thought probable that the bones were for the most part carried 

 into both the Oreston and the Yealmpton fissures by the streams which 

 flowed through them, although the suggestion has been made that the 

 more cavernous portions were from time to time the resorts of hyasnas, 

 by which some of the bones may have been introduced. 



Caves at Berry Head, Torbay, were explored at an early date by 

 the Rev. Mr. Lyte. 



' Kent's Hole,' the longest known and in some respects the most 

 celebrated of all the Devon caves, was ascertained to contain mammalian 

 remains in 1824, and its strata were systematically excavated and the 



^ See Pengelly, 'Literature of the Oreston Cavern,' Urans. Devon Assoc. 1872 ; and Dawkins, Cave- 

 Hunting. 



^ See PengeUy, 'The Literature of the Caverns near Yealmpton, South Devon,' Trans. Devon Assoc. 

 1870. 



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