REPORT ON THE EXPLORATION OF BRIXHAM CAVE. 
559 
conditions, the water dripping from the roof of the cave must at all times have tended to 
the formation of stalagmite*; and, in fact, Mr. Pengelly has shown that under such 
conditions (probably sheltered places) stalagmite did form alternately with the cave-earth. 
It would therefore follow that those bones which, from time to time, were exposed on 
the surface of the floor of the cave to the drip from the roof would receive an incrusta- 
tion of carbonate of lime of thickness proportionate to the time between their being- 
left by the predatory animals on the floor of the cave, and their being covered up by 
silt (the cave-earth) from some subsequent inundation. We know also that stalagmite 
did not form in all parts of the cave ; and where such was the case, or where the bones 
were more out of the reach of the inundating waters, some of them must have been 
exposed to the long-continued action of currents of air in the cave, and such action 
probably produced the drying and weathering effects referred by Mr. Busk to atmo- 
spheric action outside the cave. It was only when the cave was no longer subject to the 
recurrence of inundations that the formation of stalagmite became uninterrupted, and 
that the slowly accumulating layers of carbonate of lime formed the great stalagmitic 
mass, which finally sealed up the cave-earth with its contained multitude of bones. 
As the deposit of the cave-earth proceeded, a change appears to have gone on in the 
animals frequenting the cave, either from lapse of time accompanied by a change in the 
animals frequenting the district, or else owing to the circumstance of the cave having- 
become gradually drier and less subject to flooding. The remains of Elephant, Xtliino- 
ceros, and Cave-Lion gradually disappear, and those of the Hyaena become less common, 
whilst the Bears increase largely in numbers. Both circumstances combined, and possibly 
the presence of so powerful and savage an animal as the Grisly Bear, may have tended to 
the exclusion of the IIy£ena3 ; but the same cause will not account for the great number 
of the common Brown Bear which frequented the cave during its later period. This 
animal seems to have made it a place of habitual resort, and to have taken possession 
of the more retired parts of the cave, such as the Flint-knife Gallery and the further 
part of the Reindeer Gallery, to the almost entire exclusion of other predatory animals. 
Instead of detached bones, numbers of bones of Bears, including those of very young cubs, 
were found together, leading to the inference that they were the remains of animals 
which died or were killed on the spotf ; and as they are neither gnawed nor dispersed, it 
may be inferred that the Hysense had ultimately ceased to frequent the cave. 
Contemporaneously with the latter change is the gradual appearance of the smaller 
mammals, rodents, and birds in the cave. A few of their bones have been found as deep 
as 4 feet in the cave-earth No. 3 ; but the greater number occurred on the surface of 
this bed and where it is not covered by stalagmite. From the recent-looking state of 
the bones of the Hare, though found at this depth, their antiquity might be questioned ; 
* The coating of some of the pebbles, the cementation of portions of the shingle bed, and the thick mixed 
deposit of ordinary stalagmite and crystalline calcareous spar in the Crystal Gorge, which was out of the main 
water-channel, points to the prevalence throughout the whole time of similar conditions, 
f Sometimes possibly drowned by the inundations to which we have referred. 
4 F 
MDCCCLXXI1I. 
