214 
The deposits in the cave were as follows : — # . 
(( 1st. At the top, a layer of stalagmite, varying m thickness 
from one to fifteen inches, which sometimes contained 
bones, as a reindeer’s horn, and an entire humerus of t e 
C£tv6 bc&r* i 
“2nd Next below, loam or bone-earth, of an ochreous-red 
colour, from one foot to fifteen feet in thickness. 
“ 3rd. At the bottom of all, gravel with many rounded pebbles 
in it, probed in many places to the depth of twenty leet 
without its being pierced through, and as it was *)arr en ot 
fossils, left for the most part unremoved. {Ant. of Man, 
1st ed p« 99«) 1 
The more important hones of mammalia obtained from the 
bone-earth consisted of the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, 
the cave bear, the cave hysena, the cave lion, the reindeer, a 
species of horse, ox, and several rodents. . , 
The evidence of the presence of man is founded on 
assumed flint implements, and on these alone, which are thus 
described by Sir Charles Lyell No human bones weie 
obtained anywhere during these excavations, but many flint 
knives, chiefly from the lowest part of the bone-earth ; and one 
of the most perfect lay at a depth of thirteen feet from the su - 
face, and was covered by bone-earth of that thickness. Prom a 
similar position was taken one of those siliceous nuclei, 
cores, from which flint flakes had been struck off on every side. 
Neglecting the less perfect specimens, some of which were met 
with even in the lowest gravel, about fifteen knives, recognize 
as being artificially formed by the most experienced antiquaries, 
were taken from the bone-earth, and usually from near the 
bottom. Such knives, considered apart from the associated 
mammalia, afford in themselves no safe criterion of antiquity, 
as they might belong to any part of the age of stone, similar 
tools being sometimes met with in tumuli posterior in date to 
the era of the introduction of bronze. But the anteriority of 
those at Brixham to the extinct animals is demonstrated not 
only by the occurrence at one point in overlying stalagmite ot 
the bone of a cave bear, but also by the discovery at the same 
level in the bone-earth, and in close proximity to a very perfect 
tool, of the entire left hind leg of a cave bear. {Ant. of Man, 
^ S *Mr. Pengellv, F.R.S., gives a somewhat more detailed account 
of the relative position of the bones and the flint fla » e 
says Upwards of thirty implements and flakes of flint were 
found ; the greater number in the cave-earth, and the rest in 
the gravel below. Not only were they all beneath the stalag- 
