225 
at which stalagmite accumulates in one branch of a cavern to 
measure the time required by the stalagmite in any other branch 
of the same cavern, and that consequently, even if it had been 
uniform, the rate of the growth of the jockey-cap of Ingle- 
borough Cave cannot be applied as a chronometer in the case of 
any other cave.” * * * § Very true, and we will bear this truth in 
mind. 
Mr. Pengelly’s estimate of the rate of stalagmitic deposit 
in Kent’s Cavern is ^ of an inch in 250 years.f This com- 
putation is made from the deposit upon an inscription on 
a boss of stalagmite at the entrance to the “ Cave of In- 
scriptions,” which inscription bears date about that number of 
years back. And Mr. Pengelly says, as the result, that “ I 
am content with the modest hypothesis of 5,000 years for 
each inch of stalagmite.”^ If so, although the estimate for 
time is 250 times greater than that for the stalagmite at 
Boltsburn, more than 300 times greater than for the boss before 
you from Poole’s Cavern, and 1,250 times greater than that at 
Ingleborough Cavern, yet this estimate of of an inch in 
250 years would only make the four species of extinct mam- 
malia in question 7,750 years older than the pre-Roman pottery 
in the black mould, for of an inch in 250 years is equal to 
1^ inches in 7,750 years. 
For the black mould Mr. Pengelly only claims about 2,000 
years. He says, in a lecture delivered in the City Hall, Glasgow, 
upon “ Kent Cavern and its testimony to the Antiquity of Man,” 
“ They found in the first deposit, or black mould, many artificial 
objects . . . that go back to the Roman and pre-Roman times ; 
hence we come to the conclusion that the black mould, or upper- 
most deposit, is worth 2,000 years at least. ”§ 
If, then, I were to admit (which I do not) that the stalagmite 
has been uniform in its accretion, and that Mr. Pengelly’s esti- 
mate of 1 inch for 5,000 years is the correct one, it woidd only 
bring us to this conclusion, that 9,750 years from the present 
time cave-bear, cave-hyasna, Rhinoceros tichorinus, and mam- 
moth lived in the neighbourhood of the present Torquay. 
* Note on Recent Notices of the Geology and Palaeontology of Devonshire, 
part i. p. 21. 
t Ibid. pp. 24, 25. 
7 Mr. Pengelly ought to be satisfied with 3,680 years, for it was as far 
back a3 1872 when the estimate was made, and the inscription from which it 
was made was that of “Kobt. Hedges of Ireland Feb. 20: 1688 ’’which 
would be but 184 years for the accretion of -Arof an inch ; or 3,680 years for 
an inch. See Mr.Pengelly’s lecture at Manchester on Kent’s Cavern, December 
18,1872. 
§ Kent Cavern, its Testimony to the Antiquity of Man, December 22nd, 
1875, p. 17. 
