Cavern. Up to that time our researches had revealed, 
perhaps, the most remarkable collection of enamelled 
jewellery which had ever been discovered in one spot, along 
with broken bones of animals and the implements of every- 
day life, which afforded a pointed contrast to the culture 
implied by the workmanship of the articles of luxury. The 
Roman coins, and the style of workmanship of the imple- 
ments, pointed out that the cave was occupied during the 
troublous times when the Roman Empire was being dis- 
membered by the invading barbarians, and when Britain, 
stripped of the Roman legions, was falling a prey either to 
the Piets and Scots on the one hand, or to the Jutes, Angles, 
and Saxons on the other. If we stretch the limits of the 
occupation to the latest they cannot be held to extend 
nearer to our own times than the Northumbrian conquest 
of Elmet (or Kingdom of Leeds and Bradford) by Eadwine, 
in the year A. I). 616, that was preceded in 607 by the march 
of iEthelfrith on Chester, and the great battle near that 
Roman fort, celebrated in song for the defeat of the British 
and the slaying of the monks of Bangor. At that time the 
Northumbrian arms were first seen on the shores of the 
Irish Channel, and the fragment of Roman Britain — which 
had extended on the western part of our island, from the 
estuary of the Severn uninterruptedly, through Derbyshire 
and Lancashire into Cumberland — was divided, never again 
to be united. The Roman civilization, which had up to 
that time been maintained in that district disappeared, and 
was replaced by the civilization which we know as English. 
The traces therefore of Romano-Celtic ornaments and imple- 
ments from the Victoria Cave must be assigned to the 
period before the English conquest, before the Northumbrians 
conquered West Yorkshire and Mid-Lancashire. 
Underneath the stratum containing the Romano-Celtic or 
Brit- Welsh articles, at the entrance of the cave, there was 
a thickness of about six feet of angular stones, and at the 
