5b 



the bones of the hyaena, and the other gnawed bones firmly im- 

 bedded in the diluvial detritus : the second, when sand was depo- 

 sited by the sea in the second fissure, that washed in through the 

 vertical chimney, and that inundated the whole valley up to Glas- 

 tonbury : the third irruption of the sea occurring within these fif- 

 teen hundred years, and choking up the adit from the level by which 

 the sheep and foxes had entered, floating in the bones of the cuttle- 

 fish, and depositing the thin crust of mud which covered the sand. 

 The coins and pottery he supposes to have been introduced through 

 this entrance from the level. 



The author next gives an account of the Hutton caverns, situated 

 on the northern escarpment of the range, commonly called Bleadon 

 Hill. This cavern had been discovered some time ago and noticed 

 by Mr. Catcott in his "Treatise on the Deluge:" but afterwards it 

 became inaccessible by the falling in of the roof and sides. The 

 author, led by some indications of pieces of ancient bones in the 

 rubbish of some old pits, sought for this cavern by sinking a shaft, 

 and succeeded in opening into it. The chambers he reached are 

 probably the western extremity of a very extensive range of ca- 

 verns, occurring in a region bearing marks of great disturbance, 

 abounding in chasms and fissures, and containing a great number 

 of bones. The principal of those discovered belong to the elephant, 

 tiger, hyaena, wolf, boar, horse, fox, hare, rabbit, rat, mouse, and 

 bird. No trace of the bones of the ox were discovered here, al- 

 though in the cave at Banwell Hill, about a mile distant, they 

 abound; while, on the other hand, no vestige of the horse is met 

 with. 



Among the remarkable specimens found in the Hutton caverns 

 were the milk-teeth and other remains of a calf elephant about two 

 years old, and those of a young tiger just shedding its milk-teeth ; 

 and also the molares of a young herse that were casting their coro- 

 nary surfaces; — the remains of two hyaenas of the extinct species j 

 and two or three balls of album graecum. 



The Banwell caves, lying about a mile to the east of Hutton, are 

 next described. They are the property of the present Bishop of 

 Bath and Wells ; and contain remains of the bear, wolf, fox, deer, 

 and ox. Of the bear there are at least two species ; one of which 

 appears to be the Ursus spelceus of Blumenbach, and must have 

 been an animal of immense size and strength. These remains were, 

 in general, not associated according to the animals they belonged 

 to, but indiscriminately dispersed : thus the head of a bear lay by the 

 femur of an ox, and the jaw of a wolf lay by the antler of a deer. 

 Hence the author infers that these bones, after accumulating for 

 ages, were carried in by a tumultuous rush of waters, and mingled 

 together before their final deposition. He concludes that the se- 

 veral animals whose remains are deposited in the Banwell and Bur- 

 lington caves belonged to a very different age and period from 

 those found at Hutton and Uphill. 



An account is also given of two caves at Burrington Coomb, 

 lying about six miles to the east of Banwell, in one of which, though 



