426 Reports and Proceedings — British Association — 
The Ash-Hole . — On the Southern shore of Torbay, midway between the 
town of Brixham and Berry Head, and about half a mile from each, there 
is a cavern known as the Ash-Hole. It was partially explored, probably 
about, or soon after, the time Mr. MacEnery was engaged in Kent’s Hole, 
by the late Rev. H. F. Lyte, who, unfortunately, does not appear to have 
left any account of the results. The earliest mention of this Cavern I 
have been able to find is a very brief one in Bellamy’s ‘ Natural History of 
South Devon,’ published in 1839 (p. 14). Düring the Plymouth Meeting 
in 1841, Mr. George Bartlett, a native of Brixham, who assisted Mr. Lyte, 
described to this Section the objects of interest the Ash-Hole had yielded 
(see Report Brit. Assoc. 1841, Trans. Sections, p. 61). So far as was then 
known, the Cave was 30 yards long and 6 yards broad. Below a recent 
accumulation, 4 feet deep, of loam and earth, with land and marine shells, 
bones of the domestic fowl and of Man, pottery, and various implements, 
lay a true Cave-earth, abounding in the remains of Elephant. Professor 
Owen, who identified, from this lower bed, relics of Badger, Polecat, Stoat, 
Water-vole, Rabbit, and Reindeer, remarks, that for the first good evidence 
of the Reindeer in this island he had been indebted to Mr. Bartlett, who 
stated tbat the remains were found in this Cavern (see Brit. Foss. Mam. 
1846, pp. 109-110, 113-114, 116, 204, 212, 479-480). I have made 
numerous visits to the spot, which, when Mr. Lyte began bis diggings, 
must have been a shaft-like fissure, accessible from the top only. A lateral 
opening, however, has been quarried into it ; there is a narrow tunnel 
extending westward, in which the deposit is covered with a thick sheet of 
Stalagmite, and where one is tempted to believe that a few weeks’ labour 
might be well invested. 
Brixham Cavern . — Early in 1858 an unsuspected Cavern was broken 
into by quarrymen at the north- Western angle of Windmill Hill at Brixham, 
at a point 75 feet above the surface of the Street almost vertically below, 
and 100 feet above mean tide. On being found to contain bones, a lease 
in it was secured for the Geological Society of London, who appointed a 
Committee of their members to undertake its exploration ; funds were 
voted by the Royal Society, and supplemented by private subscriptions ; 
the conduct of the investigation was entrusted to Mr. Prestwich and my- 
self ; and the work, under my superintendence, as the only resident 
member of the Committee, was begun in July 1858, and completed at 
midsummer 1859. 
The Cavern, oomprised within a space of 135 feet from north to south, 
and 100 from east to west, consisted of a series of tunnel galleries from 6 
to 8 feet in greatest width, and 10 to 14 feet in height, with two small 
chambers and five external entrances. 
The deposits, in descending order, were : — 
Ist, or uppermost. A Floor of Stalagmite, from a few inches to a foot 
thick, and continuous over very considerable areas, but not throughout 
the entire Cavern. 
2nd. A mass of small angular fragments of limestone, cemented into a 
firm concrete with carbonate of lime, commenced at the principal entrance, 
which it completely filled, and whence it extended 34 feet only. It was 
terrned the First Bed. 
3rd. A layer of blackish matter, about 12 feet long, and nowhere more 
than a foot thick, occurred immediately beneath the First Bed, and was 
designated the Second Bed. 
4th. A red, tenacious, clayey loam, containing a large number of angular 
and subangular fragments of limestone, varying from very small bits to 
blocks a ton in weight, made up the Third Bed. Pebbles of trap, quartz, 
and limestone were somewhat prevalent, whilst nodules of brown hematite 
of iron and blocks of Stalagmite were occasionally met with in it. The 
