THE GEOLOGY OF PLYMOUTH. 
469 
caverns, compiled by Mr. W. Pengelly, will be found in the 
Transactions of the Devonshire Association.* 
Our limestone rocks abound in caverns. The largest is one at 
Stonehouse, an entrance to which is indicated by an inscribed stone 
in the pavement at Emma Place. This cavern contains a large 
reservoir of water, and it has been utilized for the drainage of 
certain houses, with what result time will show. 
The existence of bone caves in this locality was first ascertained 
in connection with the works for the construction of the Break- 
water. When these commenced, in 1812, Mr. "Whidbey, the 
superintendent, was asked by Sir Joseph Banks to make careful 
examination of any caverns that might be met with, and preserve 
their fossil contents, if any. Accordingly, in 1816, a quantity of 
rhinoceros bones, found in a cavern at Oreston, were sent by Mr. 
Whidbey to Sir Joseph Banks, and formed the subject of a paper 
read to the Royal Society by Sir Everard Home in February, 1817. 
Four years later other bones were found in a cavern 120 yards 
distant from the first, and described in a letter from Mr. Whidbey 
read to the Boyal Society in February, 1821. In the next year 
there were still larger finds ; and then came a lull. For six and 
thirty years the bone caverns of Oreston were merely matters of 
history, until, in 1858, a new series, more important than their 
predecessors, were discovered. 
The bones were found under varied conditions. Some were 
simply embedded in clay which had been washed into the caverns ; 
some were enclosed in a mass of stalagmitic breccia, traceable in 
its origin to a similarly acting cause. But from first to last there 
does not seem to have been any adequate evidence that the caves 
had been inhabited by the animals whose remains were found 
therein ; in other words, that they were dens. Herein they 
differ from Kent's Cavern, but agree with the Brixham and one of 
the Yealmpton Caves. Yealm Bridge Cave was a hyeena den. 
The earlier discoveries at Oreston were shrouded in a great deal 
of needless mystery. Mr. Whidbey held that the caverns were 
entirely enclosed in the solid limestone, and that there were no 
traces of communication with the surface in any direction. Dr. 
Buckland, who paid the caverns a visit in 1822, in conjunction 
with Mr. Warburton, and made a careful examination of all the 
conditions, held that there had been openings to the surface, but 
* Vol. v. part i. p. 249, et seq. 
