222 
nected with, some well-rolled and worn nodules of brown haema- 
tite iron mingled with the flints and bones. The greater part 
of the town of Brixham stands in a valley running nearly east 
and west, and about 300 feet wide at bottom. The hill on the 
north rises from the bottom at an angle of twenty degrees, 
and reaches the height of one hundred and thirty feet; this hill 
separates Brixham Valley from Torbay, and near its summit, 
on the northern or Torbay side, there is a large mass or deposit 
of brown haematite iron, whence the nodules found in the cave 
were derived. The southern hill, known as Windmill Hill, rises 
from the valley at an angle of twenty- eight degrees, and reaches 
the same height as the former. The Cavern is situated in the 
northern or Brixham side of this hill, ninety feet above the sea, 
and seventy feet above the bottom of the valley immediate y 
below; therefore, if the valley was, at the time of the deposit 
of these bones, flint implements, and nodules, as deep a,s it is 
now, the haematite nodules must have crossed the valley at 
right angles to its length, first descending a slope of twenty 
degrees, and then ascending another of twenty-eight degrees, a 
gradient of nearly one in two, before they could have entered 
the Cavern. Hence it appears certain either that the valley 
could not then have existed, or that it had been filled up wit 
gravel, which had since been cleared out. In either case the 
bones and flint implements would be of such great antiquity as 
is consistent with the subsequent reduction by natural causes ot 
the valley to its present physical configuration/ # 
This elaborate argument, clear in its details and dogmatic in 
its assertions, is founded wholly on mistaken observation, 1 
assumes that the haematite nodules found in the Cavern must 
have been derived from the northern hill, that the Brix am 
Valley has been excavated since their passage across the now 
eroded ground, and that the antiquity of man, the maker ot the 
flint knives, must, therefore, be measured by the long peno o 
time required for natural causes to excavate the valley seven y- 
five feet in depth. „ 
This assumption is disproved by a more extended survey ot 
the neighbourhood ; for the nodules of iron ore are found scat- 
tered through the soil of the hill on the south of the valley as 
well as on the north; in fact, the largest bulk of iron ore les 
on the south, it is so marked on the Ordnance geological map ; 
it has for many years been worked in open excavations, . the 
lease of the mine has been sold and resold at fabulous prices, 
and these iron nodules, with pebbles of quartz and trap, are 
* The Geologist , vol. iv. p. 154. 
