154 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
the size of tlie hole referred to had increased to such dimensions as to permit a 
small man to wriggle through. Drawn by cuiiositj 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 relies, 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. Peugelly 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 TJnm spel(piis ; 
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, withm 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. Palconer, 
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 
Avorn nodules of brown haematite ii'on mingled with the flints and bones. The 
greater part of the town of Brixham stands in a valley running nearly east and 
west, and about three hundi-ed 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 hundi-ed and thirty feet ; this hill separates Brixham valley from Torbay, 
and 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 southern hill, known as Windmill Hill, rises from the valley at 
an angle of twenty-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 
above 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 hsematite nodides must 
