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nnd earlier than the forts, as they contain weapons and 
implements of metal. 
In Kent's Hole, at Torquay, in Devonshire, in a bed of 
reddish sandy loam, vast quantities of fossil bones of extinct 
Bears, Hyaenas, Tigers, as well as fragments of the horns of the 
Megaceros, &c, have been found beneath a bed of solid Sta- 
lagmite, intermingled with patches of charcoal, human bones, 
several flint knives, arrows, spear heads, and fragments of pot- 
tery, &c. The stone implements are of the kind usually found 
in early British tumuli, and doubtless belong to the same 
period ; yet here they are mixed with bones of supposed im- 
mense antiquity, and beneath the impermeable and undisturbed 
floor of the Cavern. This discovery was supposed to present 
unequivocal proof that man and the extinct Carnivora were 
contemporary inhabitants of the dry land at the period when 
the ossiferous loam was deposited. Dr. Mantell, however, 
after describing the above appearances, did not think they 
warranted any such inference, but thus accounts for the 
mixture of human and Mammalian remains : — That Kent's 
Hole and Banwell Cave were mere fissures in the limestone 
rock, which have been filled with drift while submerged in 
shallow water, and into which the limbs and carcases of 
animals were floated by currents. Upon the emergence of 
the land, of which the raised beds of shingle afford proof, the 
fissures were elevated above the water, and gradually drained; 
the formation of Stalactites and Stalagmites from the perco- 
lation of water then commenced, and continued to a late 
period. If, when Kent's Hole first became accessible, and 
while the floor was in a soft and plastic state, and before the 
formation of the Stalactitic covering, some of the wandering 
British Aborigines prowled into the cave or occasionally 
sought shelter there, the occurrence of stone instruments, 
pottery, bones, &c, may be readily explained ; for any hard 
or heavy substances, even if not buried, would quickly sink 
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