THE CATTEDOWN BONE CAVE. 
11 
in the Battery Hill, Storehouse," read October 9th, 1879. 2 These 
papers brought together all the information that could be 
gathered from various writers who had treated on the subject; 
from the collections of the local bones deposited in various 
museums ; and embodied also the results of my own investi- 
gations. To them, and as illustrating them, to the contents 
of our Museum, I must refer those who wish a fuller view of 
" cave hunting " as it affects this neighbourhood. It will be 
sufficient now to say that ossiferous fissures or caverns are 
recorded from Oreston in 1816, 1820, 1822-3, 1843, 1858-9, and 
1878-9, with an uncertain year between 1823 and 1843; by 
Oreston understanding generally the quarries south of Cattewater 
from Turnchapel to Pomphlett. That there have been at least 
three finds on the Hoe — one uncertain, and the others about 1838 
and 1844. That Stonehouse has also had at least three — about 
1835, in 1865, and in 1879-80. That there was one at Mount Wise 
in 1861. And that the quarries at Cattedown are known to have 
yielded bones on more than two occasions previous to the present 
discovery — one of them, a find in Deadman's Bay some years 
ago, coming to my knowledge long since the reading of the 
papers cited. 
The opinion expressed by me in 1879, that few years had 
passed during the previous forty " without some fossil bones 
occurring in the Oreston quarries," has been greatly strengthened 
by subsequent experience. Taking the whole range of the 
Plymouth limestone, I am convinced that if all the "finds" had 
been recorded, we should probably treble the number of instances 
now known, though the quantity found would in most cases 
have been small. 
One of the leading points of criticism on my original lecture 
was my inclusion of man in the local cavern fauna. I ventured 
to suggest that if "the earlier investigators of our bone caves 
had been true to the claims of science, the question of the 
antiquity of man would not have been left to be settled by 
the present generation." And I adduced instances in which 
those early investigators shut their eyes to the evidence of 
man's presence ; and others where they went further, and de- 
stroyed it. 3 
2 Trans. Plym. Inst. vii. f>04-507. 
3 Op. cit. Trans. Plym. Inst. vii. 99, 100. 
