JONES : EXPLORATION OF THE ELBOLTON CAVE. 
107 
the cave in addition to the present one ; the floor was tested along 
the sides of the cave east of the first ladder, but the miners report 
that there the ground was all solid rock. 
Between the barren clay section and the second ladder there is a 
quantity of unexplored material. Huge blocks of fallen rock are 
wedged in the fissure, and it was found unsafe to remove them as 
they underpin an immense overhanging side of the cave sixty feet in 
height. The second ladder was then descended and a level driven 
beneath the fallen blocks at a depth of forty-five feet from the first 
floor. For the first six feet this level proved as ossiferous as 
any of the material yet examined and of similar character, containing 
bones of the bear and the hare. Beneath was a barren clay, followed 
by beds of sharp quartz sand, until the level is barred by solid rock. 
In the descent two or three stalagmitic floors were pierced but the 
material continued the same above and below the stalagmite. The 
new chambers that were opened last year are extensions of this 
fissure. The miners have put a steel rod eight feet lower than 
present level, forcing it through another stalagmitic floor. While 
the east part of this level is sand containing no bones, the western 
part, and the passage up to the new chambers, is a brecciated mass 
of bones and stalagmite. 
At the further extremity of the new chambers, and about sixty 
yards from the foot of second ladder, there was a deep pool into which 
the roof dipped. In the floor of the passage leading to the pool a 
hole eight feet deep was dug. The material was comminuted lime- 
stone. Here also bones of young bears were found ; they had 
evidently been washed down from the first chamber. By means of 
this last excavation the pond was lowered four or five feet. A ladder 
was placed across it and an entrance effected into a further passage 
leading to a large natural chamber. 
So far the cave has been interesting. What may be entombed 
in the unexplored depths of the fissure is a matter of pure conjecture. 
Whether a repetition of the finds in the fissure at Ray Gill and in 
the lower cave earth of the Victoria Cave with the addition of palae- 
olithic man may be obtained, must be left for further exploration to 
determine. 
