A HISTORY OF DEVONSHIRE 



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Kent's Cavern seems to have been known from time immemorial, and it has been resorted to 

 by man from palaeolithic times to the present day. There are abundant indications that it was very 

 much used during the Romano-British period, and it was frequented as late as the early part of the 

 fifteenth century, probably as a place of refuge. It has been a well-known show place from the 

 eighteenth century, and must have been visited long before that by the curious, for Mr. McEnery 

 records inscriptions of the seventeenth century incised on the stalagmite, the earliest being 1615. 



The earlier explorers clearly demonstrated the fact that rude stone implements fashioned 

 by the hand of man were found in red loam under a covering of stalagmite blended with the 

 bones of extinct cave mammalia, such as tichorhine (or woolly) rhinoceros, hippopotamus, cave- 

 bear, etc. The inference was therefore drawn that man and such mammals must have been 

 contemporaneous. 



This pushed back the antiquity of man so far that grave doubts were raised by many, not as 

 to the human origin of the 

 implements, but rather as to 

 their being contemporaneous with 

 the remains of extinct mammalia. 



The accidental discovery, 

 however, in 1858, of Windmill 

 Hill Cavern at Brixham, set 

 these doubts at rest, and that the 

 matter might be carefully investi- 

 gated, the cavern was handed over 

 to a committee appointed by the 

 Royal and Geological Societies, 

 under the superintendence of 

 Mr. Pengelly. In twelve months 

 this comparatively small cave was 

 exhausted, and the result of the 

 researches amply bore out the 

 evidence obtained from Kent's 

 Cavern by the earlier explorers, 

 for flint tools were found un- 

 mistakably blended with the re- 

 mains of extinct cave mammalia, 

 and in such a manner as to pre- 

 clude any of the objections pre- 

 viously raised. 



The bone-bearing loam, of 

 an ochreous red colour, was 

 covered with stalagmite varying 

 from I in. to 1 5 in. in thickness. 

 No human bones were found, 

 but flint implements were dis- 

 interred from the lowest part of 

 the bone-bearing loam. Man 

 resorted to the cavern before the 

 whole of this loam was deposited, 

 and evidently preceded the cave- 

 bear, for in the upper part of the 

 red loam the remains of bears 

 and their cubs were numerous. 

 After the stalagmite had begun 

 to form, the cave was evidently 

 still occasionally resorted to by beasts of prey and other animals, for the remains of bear, rhinoceros, 

 and reindeer, were found in the floor of this material. 



The most ancient deposit in Kent's Cavern was a dark red grit described as the breccia, 

 containing rounded pieces of quartz, flint implements of palaeolithic type, fashioned from the nodule, 



' The deposits in Kent's Cavern are as follows : — A, Limestone bloclcs fallen from the roof (i), in some 

 parts leaving the black mould (z) exposed, floor of granular stalagmite (3), cave-earth (4) with limestone blocks 

 and various remains. B, Roof of cavern (i), unoccupied (2), floor of crystalline stalagmite (3), unoccupied 

 (4), floor of granular stalagmite (5), cave-earth (6), dark red breccia (7). C, Limestone blocks (i), black 

 mould (2), floor of granular stalagmite (3), black band (4), cave-earth (5), crystalline stalagmite (6) 10 to 

 1 2 ft. thick with dark red breccia below. 



342 



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-Sections of Kent's Cavern ' from Diagrams in 

 British Museum 

 1865 Report B, 1872 Report C, 1867 Report 



