226 The Rev. Mr. Buckland’s account of Fossil Teeth and 
Mendip-hills, is explained, by this cave having either been 
used as a place of sepulture in early times, or been resorted 
to for refuge by wretches that perished in it, when the coun- 
try was suffering under one of the numerous military opera- 
tions which, in different periods of our early history, have 
been conducted in that quarter. The mouth of this cave was 
nearly closed by stalactite, and many of the bones were in- 
crusted with it. In the instance of a skull, it had covered the 
inside as well as the outside of the bone; and I have a frag- 
ment from the inside, which bears in relief casts of the 
channel of the veins along the interior of the skull. The 
state of these bones affords indications of very high antiquity; 
but there is no reason for not considering them post-diluvian. 
Mr. Skinner, on examination of this cave, found the bones 
disposed chiefly in a recess on one side, as in a sepulchral 
catacomb ; and in the same neighbourhood, at Wellow, there 
is a large artificial catacomb of high antiquity, covered by 
a barrow, and constructed after the manner of that at New 
Grange, near Slane, in the county of Meath, of stones suc- 
cessively overlapping each other till they meet in the roof. 
In this were found the remains of many human bodies. A 
description of it may be seen in the Archaeologia for 1820. 
2. Mr. Dillwyn has observed two analogous cases in the 
mountain lime-stone of South V/ales ; one of these was dis- 
covered, in 1805, near Swansea, in a quarry of lime-stone at 
the Mumbles, where the workmen cut across a wedge-shaped 
fissure, diminishing downwards, and filled with loose rub- 
bish, composed of fragments of the adjacent lime-stone, mixed 
with mould. In this loose breccia lay, confusedly, a large 
number of human bones, that appear to be the remains of 
bodies thrown in after a battle, with no indications of regular 
