372 
rorOLAR SCIENCE REYIEW. 
and rounded at the edge, and in the centre pierced «with a 
hole, by means of which they seem to have been strung to- 
gether like beads. Clusters of small pipes or icicles of spar, 
such as depended from the roof at our first visit, we saw 
collected here in heaps buried in the mud. Similar collections 
we had occasion to observe, accompanied by charcoal, throughout 
the entire range of the cavern, sometimes in pits excavated in 
the stalagmite. Copper ore ‘^w^as picked up in the same 
deposit — a lump much oxydised, which the late Mr. Phillips 
analysed, ^vas found to be virgin ore.”^ 
By the term virgin ore it is very possible that native copper 
may be implied, which occurs not only in Cornwall, but also in 
Ireland and Scotland. It is worthy of remark that native 
copper has been worked by the Indians on the shores of Lake 
Superior from time immemorial, and that a few copper imple- 
ments have been found both in Ireland and Scandinavia. 
There was also evidence of the cave having been penetrated 
l)y iron-using folk ; in an interesting little grotto formed by 
the bending over a flag of stalagmite into an arch elevated only 
two or three feet above the level of the floor. Its mouth was 
closed with blackish mould, in digging which in quest of pottery 
we broke into a circular cell ” of small dimensions, with its 
“ floor covered by stalagmite, in the surface of which were in- 
serted large shells with the cup uppermost, as if placed to collect 
the droppings. The entire skeleton of an animal resembling a 
badger, and portions of the upper jaw of a hog, with one of its 
tusks indicating great magnitude, were scattered over the earth, 
and in the midst of all a barbed spear of iron. These relics 
were severally invested with a crust of stalagmite like the speci- 
mens from the Grerman and English dropping-wells, and reposed 
with their under surface inlaid in the floor. Many of the bones, 
when stripped of their spar, were found discoloured, as if by 
smoke; pieces of charcoal indicated the remains of a fire.” 
i\Ir. McEnery did not find any implements of bronze, but his 
omission has been supplied by the explorations of the Kent’s 
Hole Committee in 1865, in which a bronze ‘^fibula, the bowl 
and part of tlie stem of a spoon, a spear liead, a fragment of a 
socketed celt, two or three rings, one coil of a helical spring, a 
pill ” nearly four inches long, and an object “ resembling a horse- 
shoe in form, but not more than an inch long,” were also found. 
There is therefore evidence that the black superficial layer be- 
longs, not merely to the neolithic, Imt also to the bronze and 
tlie iron ages, and from the occurrence of Koman pottery it may 
in part be referred to a time not more remote than the Koman 
occupation. This association of objects belonging to widely 
• McIOncry, ^^Cavc liesearclies,” pp. 14. 15, 10, 
