68 
CAVES AND FISSURES AT ORESTON. 
Everard Home describes these teeth and bones as belonging to the 
rhinoceros, deer, and a species of bear. 
A third, and still more extensive discovery, was made in the same 
quarries in the summer of 1822, by the intersection of other apertures 
in the middle of the solid limestone, containing an immense deposit of 
bones and teeth imbedded in a similar earthy matrix to that in which 
they were found in the two former cases. On this discovery being com¬ 
municated to me through the kindness of Mr. Barrow, I went imme¬ 
diately to Plymouth accompanied by Mr. Warburton, and found the 
circumstances to be nearly as follows: In a vast quarry produced by 
the removal of an entire hill of limestone for the construction of the 
Breakwater, there is an artificial cliff ninety feet in height, the face of 
which is perforated and intersected by large irregular cracks and ca¬ 
vities, which are more or less filled up with loam, sand, or stalactite. 
These apertures are sections of fissures and caverns that have been 
laid open in working away the body of the rock, and are disposed in 
it after the manner of chimney flues in a wall; but they attracted no 
attention till the discovery of bones in them above mentioned. Some 
of them have lateral communications with adjacent cavities, others are 
insulated and single; some lise almost vertically towards the surface, 
others are tortuous, passing obliquely upwards, downwards, inwards, 
and in all directions in the most irregular manner through the body 
of the rock. Apertures of the same kind occur in continual succes¬ 
sion in the limestone of the natural cliff that forms the shore from 
Oreston to Stonehouse; and at the latter place, immediately on the 
north side of the Marine barracks, is another large quarry, in the face 
of which I found four apertures of the same kind leading also into 
