50 Dr J. W. Dawson on the Antiquity of Mem. 



to the eastward, seem to have been in eruption in Post- 

 pliocene times, and may perhaps have been connected and 

 coeval with repeated risings or sinkings of the land in the 

 basin of the Meuse. It might be said, with equal truth, 

 that according to the i^resent course of events, no series of 

 ages would suffice to reproduce such an assemblage of cones 

 and craters as those of the Eifel (near Andernach for ex- 

 ample) ; and yet some of them may be of sufficiently modern 

 date to belong to the era when man was contemporary with 

 the mammoth and rhinoceros in the ba^in of the Meuse. 



" But although we may be unable to estimate the mini- 

 mum of time required for the changes in physical geography 

 above alluded to, we cannot fail to perceive that the dura- 

 tion of the period must have been very protracted, and that 

 other ages of comparative inaction may have followed, sepa- 

 rating the Post-pliocene from the historical periods, and 

 constituting an interval no less indefinite in its duration." 

 ***** ^ * 



" As the osseous and other contents of Kent s Hole had, 

 by repeated diggings, been thrown into much confusion, it 

 was thought desirable, in 1858, when the entrance of a new 

 and intact bone-cave was discovered at Brixham, three or 

 four miles west of Torquay, to have a thorough and sys- 

 tematic examination made of it. The Koyal Society made 

 two grants towards defraying the expenses,* and a committee 

 of geologists was charged wdth the investigations, among 

 whom Mr Prestwich and Dr Falconer took an active part, 

 visiting Torquay while the excavations were in progress 

 under the superintendence of Mr Pengelly. The last-men- 

 tioned geologist had the kindness to conduct me through 

 the subterranean galleries after they had been cleared out 

 in 1859 ; and I saw, in company with Dr Falconer, the 

 numerous fossils which had been taken from the subter- 

 ranean fissures and tunnels, all labelled and numbered, with 

 references to a journal kept during the progress of the work, 

 and in which the geological position of every specimen was 

 recorded with scrupulous care. 



" The discovery of the existence of this suite of caverns 



* When these grants failed, Miss Burdett Coutts, then residing at Torquay, 

 liberall}' supplied the funds for completing the work. 



