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THE GEOLOGIST. 



sion of the dealer, visited the quarry, bought up all the bones the quarry-men 

 had, and engaged to take from them all they could find, with the distinct 

 understanding that no other person should be allowed to have any. I may 

 state here that this stipulation did not arise from any monopolizing acquisitive- 

 ness on my part, but from a regret, which I have long felt, that entire series of 

 specimens of this interesting character — illustrative oi' great geological facts, of 

 bygone geographical and cHmatal conditions, and of extinct forms of Hfe — 

 should be so frequently separated and scattered, no one knew whither ; hence 

 I decided on doing my best to prevent such dispersal by purchasing all the 

 specimens, in order to hand them over to the national collection in the British 

 Museum, should they prove worthy of a place there. Since my first visit I 

 have frequently gone to the quarry, and have purchased considerable numbers 

 of bones ; all of these, with the exception of my last purchase, are now the 

 property of the nation, and are under the care of the distinguished head of the 

 Natural History department of the British Museum, by whom, I have no 

 doubt, an account of them will be, sooner or later, given to the world, should 

 he find in them any new revelations, or any confirmations or corrections of old 

 and doubtful readings. 



My endeavours to preserve the integrity of the series have only been par- 

 tially successful. One lot has found its way to the Museum at Leeds ; another 

 valuable collection has been purchased for the University Museum, at Oxford, 

 by a lady, who on a former occasion manifested her interest in cavern- 

 researches ; a considerable number are in the possession of Mr. Hodge, of 

 Plymouth, who has very frequently visited the cavern, and in whom I have found 

 a formidable but at the same time a most courteous rival. So far, however, as 

 these cases are concerned no harm has been done— the specimens thus disposed 

 of would doubtless be readily available for scientific purposes ; but it unfortu- 

 nately happened that a glowing and marvellously embellished account of the 

 discovery appeared in the local papers, thereby awakening a general curiosity 

 in the neighbourhood. Crowds of persons visited the quarries, and eagerly 

 secured — sometimes at heavy prices — what very many of them regarded as 

 astonishing relics, and as incontestible proofs of the occurrence and universality 

 of the Noachian deluge. Such specimens — and I have reason to believe they 

 are very numerous — are probably irrecoverably lost. 



I was so fortunate as to find an old man at work in the quarries who had 

 been comiected with them all his lifetime. He had seen the foundation-stone 

 of the Breakwater torn from tlie parent rock and shipped to be transported to 

 its new bed at the bottom of Plymouth Sound. He pointed out to me the line 

 of direction of Mr. Whidbey's caverns, whence it appeared that the new one 

 was in the same line, as if the various caverns had been so many enlarged por- 

 tions of one and the same original line of fracture. 



The Oreston limestone consists of a series of beds varying from one foot to 

 ten feet in tliickness, and dipping in a direction south fifteen degrees west, at 

 an angle of about thirty-two degrees. The artificial cliff produced by the 

 quarrying operations of half a century is, at present, about sixty feet high ; its 

 base is one thousand and ninety feet from the quay, or river-margin, and fifteen 

 feet above tlie level of high-water at spring-tides ; hence the new cavern was 

 about four hundred and eighty-seven feet from Mr. Whidbey's tliird cavern, five 

 Imndred and sixty-ei^-lit feet from the second, and rune hundred and tliirty feet 

 from the first — that is, the first cavern, or fissure, Avas one hundred and'^sixty 

 feet from the river- or original face of the clilf ; the second occurred three 

 hundred and sixty-two feet beyond this, in the mass of the hill; eighty-one feet 

 further, in the same direction, disclosed the third ; and a further advance of 

 four luiu(h-c(l and eiglity-seven feet brought the workmen to the fourth, i.e., 

 Ihc cavern tUscovercd last winter. 



