Kent’s hole. 
377 
ceros, and the like, occur. But whether it be true or not, it 
adds a tenfold interest to the exploration of the cave, because 
there may be still left, in some nook or corner, masses of the 
older breccia, containing forms of life that had passed away 
before the post-glacial invaders from the north had arrived in 
western Europe. 
From this brief sketch it will be seen that the contents of 
Kent’s Hole are divisible into three distinct groups, each of 
which is separated from the others by a blank of indefinite 
length, not to be summed up in years. At the top there is the 
prehistoric series, below that the postglacial cave earth series ; 
and, lastly, imbedded in the latter, are ossiferous masses of sta- 
lagmite which belong to a much more ancient order of things, 
and which chanced to have been left by those causes by which 
the ancient cave earth was removed. Whatever those causes 
were — and they must have been aqueous — they did not affect 
Kent’s Hole alone, but also the neighbouring cavern of Brix- 
ham, and in precisely the same way. 
