154 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



the size of the hole referred to had increased to such dimensions as to permit a 

 small man to wriggle through. Drawn by curiosity to the spot, the workmen 

 saw their missing crowbar on a ledge below, it having been probably thrust 

 down through the hole in their absence by some one fond of a practical joke. 

 The proprietor of the ground at once descended to recover his lost property, 

 and found himself in a cavern. This cave, closed to external access as it had 

 been, was free from the objections of the probable introduction and commingling, 

 at subsequent periods, of human relics, which had been formerly urged against 

 Kent's Cavern. When the cavern was first entered it consisted of two galleries, 

 one nearly due north and south (magnetic), and the other nearly east and west; 

 the first having an horizontal external opening at its northern extremity, but 

 which was completely closed with fragments of the adjacent limestone firmly 

 cemented with stalagmitic matter into a breccia. After this passage was forced 

 Mr. Pengelly entered, and saw at the southern end of the north and south 

 gallery, on the stalagmite floor the antlers of a reindeer. As this appeared a 

 virgin cavern, it seemed exactly adapted to afford the evidence required to 

 substantiate the position Kent's and other similar caverns had, from their open 

 state, failed to do. Accordingly, Dr. Falconer — who had visited it — induced 

 the Geological Society to take a lease of the cavern, and the Royal Society 

 supplied funds for its excavation. The layers of deposit were carefully removed 

 one by one. In the stalagmite there was found a fine bone of Ursus spelmis ; 

 below this was the "bone bed," with every bone and stone placed with their 

 longest axes regularly in the plane of the bedding, and the shortest at right 

 angles to it, except at one spot where they were found sticking in the mud, 

 inclined in every direction, just as they had fallen in from above. Bones of 

 animals, with flint-flake implements — some of the latter of a well-marked 

 character, and unquestionably human relics — were found at the base of the 

 " bone bed," having a depth of deposit over them varying from thirteen inches 

 to as many feet. Mr. Pengelly kept, as the work proceeded, a minute journal 

 of the exact position of every bone and implement in the cavern. The bones 

 and implements found were cleared carefully out of the matrix with a knife ; 

 but, in one instance, within the space of about two square feet, there appeared 

 to be a great number of bones together, and the whole mass was removed to 

 Mr. Pengelly's house ; and on being there subsequently cleaned by Dr. Falconer, 

 in the presence of witnesses, proved to be the entire left hind leg of a cave-bear, 

 fleeced, and having every bone in its true anatomical position, even the patella 

 (knee-cap), and astragalus in situ ; thereby showing that the fossil had not been 

 washed out of some older deposit, and afterwards deposited in the cavern with 

 relatively much more modern things, as flint knives, but that the ligaments of 

 the leg were still in existence when it entered the cavern, that is, that man was 

 contemporary with the Cave bear. 



There was a remarkable circumstance connected with some well-rolled and 

 worn nodules of brown haematite iron mingled with the flints and bones. The 

 greater part of the town of Brixham stands in a valley running nearly east and 

 \\ est , and about three hundred feet wide at bottom. The hill on the north 

 rises from the bottom at an angle of twenty degrees, and reaches the height of 

 one hundred and thirty feet; this hill separates Brixham valley from Torbay, 

 ami near its summit, on the northern or Torbay side, there is a large mass or 

 deposit of brown haematite iron, whence the nodules found in the cave were 

 derived. The soul horn hill, known as Windmill Hill, rises from the valley at 

 an angle of i wen! v -eight degrees, and reaches the same height as the former. 

 The cavern is situated in the northern, or Brixham side of this hill, ninety feet 

 ahol e the sea, and seventy-five feet above the bottom of the valley immediately 

 below ; therefore, if the valley was at the time of the deposit of these bones, 

 flint -implements, and nodules, as deep as it is now, the haematite nodules must 



