EXPLORATION OF THE CAVES OF BORNEO. 279 



and teeth have, however, been found from time to time, and of 

 these I forwarded a sample to Mr. Evans, but many of them were 

 evidently quite recent. 



In the event of other bone-beds being ultimately discovered 

 in any part of Borneo, they will doubtless resemble generally the 

 accumulation of nuviatile debris described in caves V. and XIII, 

 At present no animals habitually use caves in this island in the 

 same way as the caves of Europe were used by the large feline 

 carnivora as retreats to which to carry their prey, so that the rich 

 assemblage of mammalian remains which characterises the old 

 hyama dens of England cannot be looked for in Borneo. On the 

 other hand, the fissures which abound like natual pitfalls over the 

 limestone country, and which in Europe have furnished deposits 

 of bones, are in Borneo barren or nearly so, so far as my ex- 

 perience has gone. The reason is to be found, I suspect, in the 

 remarkably rugged and precipitous nature of the limestone hills,. 

 which makes them practically inaccessible to the larger mammals, 

 and in their dense coating of jungle, the matted roots of which 

 bridge over all the fissures to a greater or less degree, and' afford 

 a safe passage to the smaller animals. 



3. The Human Remains* 



Many of the caves present traces of the presence of man. 

 Eleven of the caves examined by me exhibited such traces, and I 

 had information of five others. The cave exploration has, indeed, 

 yielded traces of man or his handiwork under three distinct sets of 

 conditions, viz., (1) in river gravel ; (2) in the river mud of ihe 

 Janibusan cave, as mentioned in the preceding section; and (3) in 

 the surface layers of various caverns in Upper Sarawak and at Niah. 



(1.) During my first exploration I discovered, imbedded at 

 the bottom of a bed of river gravel exposed in a section on the 

 left bank of the Siniawan river, a single stone celt. It was for- 

 warded to the late Sir C. Lyell with a note of the circumstances of 

 its occurrence, and was pronounced by him to be of Neolithic type. 

 It is the only existing evidence, to nry knowledge, of the use of 

 stone by man for the manufacture of industrial implements yet 

 discovered in Borneo. At present iron seems to be universally 

 employed even by the rudest tribes. 



(2.) In cave No. XIII., scattered abundantly throughout the 



