CARTER : NOTES ON THE GEOLOGY OF MALHAM AND SETTLE. 245 
largest of many caves in these scars, was discovered by Mr. Joseph 
Jackson, of Settle, on the day of Her Majesty's accession to the 
throne, and hence was christened by that active investigator 
" Victoria Cave." The Victoria Cave is excavated in the face of 
Kingscar, a vertical cliff of Mountain Limestone, 200 feet high, and 
900 feet above the Ribble, which flows through the valley beneath, 
and 1,450 feet above sea-level. The cave consists of two main com- 
partments, each exceeding 100 feet in length, and possesses several 
entrances. When discovered, the outer cave was found to be filled 
to within two or three feet of the roof with solid, tenacious clay, 
which formed a barrier to its examination, but in the inner chamber 
various human relics were unearthed. Since 1870 the cave has been 
systematically investigated by a Committee of the British Association, 
with most important results. 
By the removal of several yards of talus, the result of the 
weathering of the cliffs, the entrance to the cave was cleared down to 
the floor. A trench was then excavated through the cave deposits, 
and disclosed evidence of a series of successive occupations by man 
and animals during pre-historic times. A thin dark line along the 
side of the trench marked the most recent occupation. Near the 
entrance it consisted of about two feet of charcoal, bones, etc., forming 
the ancient hearths of men who had used the cave for a home ; the 
bones being remains of animals such as still live in Britain — the 
Celtic short-homed ox, the goat, pig, horse and dog, with the 
occasional remains of stag, badger and fox, and the domestic fowl. 
As to the date of these latest cave-dwellers, the presence of remains 
of the domestic fowl, introduced into this country by the Romans, 
form a chronological limit in one direction, and the abundant use of 
the short-horned ox for food gives us another limiting date. For this 
species of ox, which is now confined to the mountains of Wales and 
Scotland, was the only breed of oxen used by the inhabitants of the 
Brit-Welsh kingdom of Elmete, which extended from Leeds to Settle, 
and which was devastated by the English in 615, when the men and 
oxen of that period were driven westward by the ancestors of the 
present Yorkshire dalesmen, and had to defend themselves in the 
fastnesses of Wales. These facts combined show that the cave was 
