568 
BEPOET ON THE EXPLOEATION OF BETXHAM CAVE. 
surface of the bed of shingle, whatever may have been the cause, gave greatly increased 
room in the cave ; and as it was no longer a mere channel for a flowing stream, but, on 
the contrary, presented for certain periods open passages with a dry bed of loam and 
limestone debris, it became a place of resort for the predatory animals of the district. 
They there brought their prey to devour, scattering the gnawed bones of the disjointed 
limbs in different and distant parts of the cave. The Hy tense carried their prey to all 
the main passages of the cave, but sought chiefly for that purpose the more retired 
galleries, while their own remains are more equally scattered. Of the 669 bones deter- 
mined by Mr. Busk, if we omit the bones of the Bears, we find that the distribution of 
the others was as follows : — 
West 
Flint-knife 
Reindeer 
Chamber. 
Gallery. 
Gallery, North. 
Bones of the various animals excepting Bears 
57 
124 
109 
Bones of Hyaena 
21 
IS 
18 
It may, however, be doubted whether the ITysense made the cave more than a place 
of temporary resort, as, unlike in other old caves which they frequented, no coprolites of 
Hysense have been found here, though that may admit of the explanation before given. 
But although now generally dry, the cave continued subject to be flooded, perhaps at 
long intervals ; and it is probable that the water found its way into the cave by the 
north entrance and so through the Reindeer Gallery, the Flint-knife Gallery, to the 
West and South Chambers. As it retired we may suppose it to have caused, by its fall 
over the limestone ledge above d (fig. 2, Plate XLXIX.) in the West Chamber during 
rapid subsidence, the disturbed and abnormal position of the bones in the cave-earth 
there noticed. To such advance and retreat of the waters may also be attributed the 
irregular deposition of the cave-earth, the variable depth at which bones of the same 
limbs are buried, and the silting up of the passages furthest from the point of entrance 
of the waters, which latter their outflow kept clear. The influx and efflux of water 
was also of sufficient power to move and rearrange the bones throughout its course, 
as, according to Mr. Pengelly, they were mostly found, not as scattered indiscriminately 
by wild animals, but lying with their length in the direction of the passages of the 
cave. By the repetition at distant intervals of these inundations, and by the accu- 
mulation during these intervals of fresh crops of bones, the bone-bearing cave-earth was 
gradually formed ; at the same time the occasional visits of man are indicated by 
the rare occurrence of a flint implement lost as he groped his way through the dark 
passages of the cave — into the more innermost recesses of which he now occasionally 
penetrated, though keeping, in most cases, to within 20 to 50 feet of one of the main 
entrances. 
As the denudation and deepening of Brixham valley proceeded, the cave became less 
and less subject to inundations, that after a time ceased to reach the level on which it 
stood. With this greater freedom from inundations, the increasing number and proportion 
