524 



Abstract of Report on Brixham Cave. 



[June 20, 



in greater numbers than were the bones of any other animal. These animals 

 resorted especially to the darker and more secluded Flint-knife Gallery, 

 where 221 out of 366 of their determinable bones were found, whereas only 

 twenty-six were met with in the Reindeer Gallery. 



Finally, as the cave became out of the reach of the flood waters, the 

 drippings from the roof, which up to this. period had, with the single ex- 

 ception before mentioned, been lost in the accumulating cave-earth or 

 deposited in thin calcareous incrustations on the exposed bones, now com- 

 menced that deposit of stalagmite which sealed up and preserved undisturbed 

 the shingle and cave-earth deposited under former and different conditions. 

 The cave, however, still continued to be the occasional resort of beasts of 

 prey ; for sparse remains of the Reindeer, together with those of the Bear 

 and Rhinoceros, were found in the stalagmite floor. After a time, the falling 

 in of the roof at places (and any earthquake movement may have detached 

 blocks from it) and the external surface-weathering stopped up some parts 

 of the cave, and closed its entrances with an accumulation of debris. From 

 that time it ceased to be accessible, except to the smaller rodents and bur- 

 rowing animals, and so remained unused and untrodden until its recent dis- 

 covery and exploration. 



At this time it is not necessary to contend for the correctness of many 

 of the early observations, so Jong contested, in evidence of the antiquity of 

 man ; they are too numerous and too well attested to admit of doubt, and 

 are now generally accepted by geologists. At the same time it is to be 

 observed that the discovery and exploration of Brixham Cave have had a 

 very important influence in bringing about such a result. The discoveries 

 of Schmerling and others had dropped into oblivion, the assertions of 

 M. Boucher de Perthes were ignored, until the certainty of the facts early 

 established in the exploration of Brixham Cave showed the strong prima 

 facie evidence in proof of the contemporaneity of man and of the great 

 extinct mammalia, and at once led to the conclusive investigation of the 

 Somme valley. The evidence of Brixham further has its own special points 

 of value, — in the completeness of its record, in the certainty of its data, and 

 in the fact of its having been the first ossiferous cavern worked out in a 

 systematic and complete manner, of which the record, plans, and sections 

 are complete, and of which every specimen is preserved, duly marked and 

 registered, so that it can at any time be assigned to its exact original place 

 in the cave. This work, in fact, is not only important as the first systematic 

 attempt to solve an obscure natural-history question, but it may further be 

 considered as having inaugurated the great question, since so well established 

 on other additional evidence, of the Antiquity of Man. 



