9 
shattered flints were found in the soil outside and above the 
cavern, as well as within it ; and it justified my complaint, that 
this significant fact, indicative of the geological origin of the 
flints, had “ been either overlooked or ignored,”* * * § — and it 
further tends greatly to confirm the opinion which I had ex- 
pressed, that the cavern flints were subsoil flakes w r ashed into 
the fissure with the gravel and loam in which they were 
embedded. 
The evidence of work and use on the cavern flints. Mr. 
Prestwich, in the report to the Royal Society, expresses his 
opinion that fifteen of the flints show unmistakable evidence 
of having been artificially worked ; that on nine others the 
workmanship is very rude or doubtful ; while there are seven 
which he thinks show no trace of having been worked at all.j* 
Mr. Pengelly, in his early, more cautious, and most valuable 
report, appears not to have been aware that any such evidence 
of use had then been found on the flints. He says, indeed, 
“that one of the ends of the solitary bone (No. 59), found on 
the surface in the west chamber, had been cut off, apparently, 
with some sharp instrument ” ; J but Mr. Busk has identified 
this relic as being the rib of a sheep (a neolithic animal) sawn 
across — and a recent bone.§ 
Mr. Evans, however, concludes his account of the cavern 
with this remarkable statement “ Most of the implements 
prove not only to have been made by man, but to have been 
actually in use before becoming embedded in the cave-loam ; 
while, from the whole of the flints discovered presenting these 
signs of human workmanship or use upon them, it is evident 
that their presence in the cave must in some measure be due 
to human agency, though they were probably deposited by 
means of water in the position in which they were found.” || 
Agreeing with the latter clause, and accepting the acknowledg- 
ment that the flints ■were probably washed into the cavern, 
which is a part of my case, I utterly deny that any such marks 
of workmanship or use can be shown to exist on the cavern flints. 
It is true that many pages descriptive of Brixham and Kent’s 
Caverns in Ancient Stone Implements are loaded with language 
indicating workmanship or marks of use on the flints; but then 
these reiterated and constantly recurring phrases, so confidently 
asserted, are only words, which require not assertion, but proof ; 
* Transactions of Victoria Institute, vol. viii. p. 216. 
t Report, pp. 561-2. 
+ Transactions of Devon Association, vol. vi. p. 818. 
§ Transactions of Royal Society, vol. clxiii. p. 502. 
|| ncient Stone Implements, p. 471. 
