After tliese events came Messrs. Lartet and Christy, whose 
combined labours seem to have established the fact of the co- 
existence of man with extinct mammalia. 
As it is not my purpose to attempt to controvert unques- 
tionable truth propounded as such (as we shall see by-and- 
by) some ages before the present era of enlightenment, I 
admit fully the reality of this spectre, which has scared so 
many minds from their propriety; but I do not at all admit 
the awful character and meaning attached to it. I have come 
sufficiently near to the apparition to discern that the materials 
of which it is constructed are of very commonplace character, 
and that the infernal light shining from those hollow sockets 
is but, after all, the glimmer of a miner’s candle. 
In plain words, whilst I give all credit to the great diligence 
exhibited by Mr. Pengelly, as also to his fellow-explorers, in 
the careful ascertainment of details, I wholly dissent from 
his deductions, briefly expressed thus in 1874 : — 
“ It is of no service to attempt a concealment of the fact 
that the real contention at present is not whether man has 
occupied Devonshire during 70,000 or 700,000 years, or any 
still greater number, but whether the old belief that he first 
appeared on Earth some 6,000 years ago, is to be retained or 
abandoned.”* 
These words are calculated to rouse our attention ; and as 
we do not know how far old beliefs on other points may be 
endangered, we shake off something of the languid softness 
inspired by the delightful air of this English Capua, and 
address ourselves to a combat which we find ultimately 
involves the truth itself. 
The important question then which opens upon us is the 
lapse of time, of which we are supposed to possess a chro- 
nometer in the rate of deposit of stalagmite in Kent’s Cavern. 
The Brixham Cavern having been pervaded by a rush of 
water and the stalagmite thus broken up, affords, as is 
admitted, f “ only a complicated solution of the problem.” 
To avoid prolixity in the description of Kent’s Cavern, I 
adopt an authentic estimate in 1874. 
“Taking the correct data (that of the report of 1869) J we 
have twelve feet of stalagmite formed, let it be assumed from 
the dates on its upper surface, at the rate of ‘05 inch iu 250 
* Notes on Recent Notices of the Geology and Paleontology of Devonshire, 
Part i. p. 26. By W. Pengelly. F.R.S. 
t Boyd Dawkins’ Cave-Hunting , pp. 324 to 334. 
+ Notes , as above, Part i. p. 25. 
N 2 
