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REPORT ON THE EXPLORATION OF BRIXHAM CATE. 
Flint-knife Gallery the gravel rested on a continuous limestone floor, but elsewhere its 
base has not been reached, the floor-fissure being too narrow to allow of working to the 
bottom. 
The loam which, as previously mentioned, occupied the “basin-shaped hollow” 
(cl, fig. 2) in the fourth bed was not in contact with the lower part of the western 
wall of the West Chamber, but was separated from it by a steep talus of gravel, the 
summit of which was a very few inches below the base of the first west entrance, and 
about as much above the vertex of the second. Hence the former entrance was filled 
exclusively with materials of the third bed, and the latter with those of the fourth. 
This was the highest level to which the gravel attained. 
Lines of Inclination in the two principal Galleries . — The longitudinal axes of the 
limestone floors of the principal galleries were sensibly horizontal. Though, as has 
been remarked, the “ wall-grooves ” were without sensible inclination, careful measure- 
ments showed that both pairs dip, at about two degrees, from the West Chamber, 
continuously through the Flint-knife and Beindeer Galleries, to the mouth of the 
Steep Slide Hole. Beyond the latter point to the north entrance they are not so well 
defined, but their dip is in the opposite direction, and amounts to four or five degrees. 
In the Pen Gallery the inclination is southwards — that is, from the West to the South 
Chamber. 
Omitting the detrital accumulations in and immediately adjacent to the north and 
first and second west entrances, the dips of both the third and fourth beds corre- 
sponded, in amount and direction, to that of the grooves in the same branches of the 
cavern. But between the eastern end of the Flint-knife Gallery and the northern end 
of the Crystal Gorge the inclination of these beds was southwards — that is, from the 
former to the latter point. 
In the Beindeer Gallery the stalagmitic floor dipped southwards, at an angle of 25°, 
from its northern end to a few feet beyond the Steep Slide Hole ; thence to the eastern 
end of the Flint-knife Gallery its dip was reversed in direction and greatly diminished 
in amount ; and from the latter point to the Crystal Gorge it again dipped southward, 
but still at a small angle. The exceptionally large inclination at the northern end was 
due to the fact that there the stalagmite covered the talus formed by the first bed, 
beneath which the second and third beds lay. 
Deposits in the less important parts of the Cavern . — The description just given of 
the “Third” and “Fourth” Beds applies only to the West Chamber, the Flint-knife 
Gallery, and the northern branch of the Beindeer Gallery. 
South of the Crystal Gorge the deposit was a mixture of loam, fine sand, and finely 
comminuted shale in variable proportions, occasionally cemented and stained with 
ferruginous matter. It was commonly disposed in distinct layers, which, instead of 
being horizontal, were parallel to the limestone walls, and therefore approximately 
vertical. The loam was much paler than the typical red cave-earth, and contained no 
stones. 
