FURTHER EXAMPLES 
95 
known as the Brixham cave. In 1858, the question as 
to whether man did, or did not, exist with extinct animals 
was being hotly debated. One of the leading geologists 
of the time, Dr Hugh Falconer, induced two of the 
premier London Societies — the Royal and the Geological 
— to explore the cave and settle the question. A pioneer 
in cave exploration, Mr William Pengelly,^ undertook to 
direct the work and record the results. In fig. 35, I 
reproduce a copy of his section across the cave to show 
the strata of the floor. 
They correspond to those 
just seen in the caves 
of the Mendips. There 
was a bottom stratum of 
gravel ; a middle stratum 
of 5 to 6 feet in thickness 
of red cave earth, which 
contained bones of the 
woolly rhinoceros, mam- 
moth, hyena, lion, bear, 
etc. Then over the cave 
earth came a stratum of 
stalagmite about a foot in 
thickness, in which an 
antler of the reindeer was 
embedded ; over the stalag- 
mite a surface stratum of 
recently formed earth. In the cave earth 
the bones of the extinct animals, were found flint tools 
shaped by man. The exploration thus settled the question 
as to man's contemporaneity with extinct animals, but 
threw no light on the kind of man nor the place of his 
culture in the scheme of human evolution. 
To obtain light on those problems, we must pay 
the great neighbouring cave — Kent's Cavern — a cursory 
visit. In 1846, the Torquay Natural History Society, of 
which William Pengelly was the moving spirit, began to 
-Section across the Brixham 
showing the strata of the 
mingled with 
explore this vast series of damp, dark pa 
' See reference, p. 96. 
ssaces, vau 
Its, 
