196 
APPENDIX A. 
In 1846, a sub-committee of the Torquay Nat. Hist. Soc. commenced 
a search iu the S.W. chamber, when they broke up the modern floor of 
stalagmite. Probably no part of the cavern is in wet weather more exposed 
to drop than this ; hence it might have been expected that here if anywhere 
twenty-two years would have produced a film of stalagmite of appreciable 
thickness, especially as it was known that the modern floor attains an 
average thickness considerably surpassing that in any other part of the 
cavern which the committee have explored. Yet not a film teas to be found 
either at “ the bottom of the pit, on the section made in digging it, or on 
the cave-earth thrown out of it. This remote part of the cavern was rarely 
entered by visitors, and the operations of nature went on without check or 
interference, but everything ivas found precisely as it was left upwards of 
twenty years ago.” 
APPENDIX B. 
From the Fourth Report of the Committee, page 4 : — 
“In most cases the composition of the cave-earth was of the ordinary 
typical character, about equal parts of red loam or clay, and of comparatively 
small angular fragments of limestone. In this condition it almost invariably 
contained bones, but when there was any marked departure from it, by either 
loam or stones being greatly in excess, bones were extremely rare. In a few 
instances the deposit was a mixture of fine earth and sand, resembling 
ordinary road-washing, and contained no trace of bone.” 
Is it not evident that both the red loam and clay must have been washed 
in from the surface of the ground ? 
If more proof is required, we have it in what follows : — 
“The cave-earth contained a considerable number of fragments of 
Devonian grit, huge blocks of limestone, large masses of old stalagmite, and 
loose lumps of rock-like breccia.” 
“ The grit fragments could not have been derived from the cavern hill, but 
were probably furnished by neighbouring loftier eminences. They have 
assumed sub-angular or well-rounded forms indicative of the rolling action of 
water ; but their transportation into the cavern by this agency would 
require that the district should have a surface configuration very unlike that 
which now obtains.” 
Compare the description of Victoria Cave in Yorkshire by Boyd Dawkins ; 
also the Paviland Cave (233), the Cavern of Bruniquel (247), of Cro-Magnon 
(252), the Grotta dei Colombi (259), the Gailenreuth Cave (274), the Kirk- 
dale Cave (280), the Wirksworth Cave (284), Wookey Hole (296, 305, 312), 
Brixhani Cave (320), Kent’s Hole (326), “red clayey deposit ” at Madras 
'426). 
Why do the rivers, which, at the will of our scientists, convey the deposits 
