THE BONE OAVES OF THE PLYMOUTH DISTRICT. 
87 
THE BONE CAVES OF THE PLYMOUTH DISTRICT. 
BY ME. E. N. WORTH, F.G.S., HON". MEM. 
(Read February 29th, 1879.) 
I have to invite attention to the bone-bearing caverns of the lime- 
stone of Plymouth. Cave-hunting is a purely modern branch of 
science. For hundreds of years the bones of extinct animals have 
been found at frequent intervals in cavern and allied deposits ; but 
it is only in our own time that they have been really understood. 
Nearly all the stories of buried giants can be traced to the discovery 
of the bones of a mammoth, or of one of its huge allies. And 
even when comparative anatomy began to be developed, the lesson 
these remains had to teach remained unread. Elephant bones 
found in England were assigned to animals brought over in the 
army of Julius Caesar. Eelics of the rhinoceros, tiger, bear, and 
hyaena, were traced to the losses sustained by travelling menageries. 
And when their quantity utterly disposed of such random hypo- 
theses, it was suggested that the animals were borne hither on the 
wave of the deluge. Anything seemed preferable to the simple 
truth — that herds of elephants once roamed the wastes of Britain ; 
that the hippopotamus dwelt in its rivers ; that the rhinoceros 
lurked in its swamps ; that its woods and jungles were peopled 
by the lion and hyaena, and by that still more terrible beast, 
Machairodus led idem, the great sabre-toothed tiger; that bears 
haunted its mountains ; that its plains were covered with droves of 
gigantic cattle, the urns and the aurochs, with the stately Irish 
elk; that even the reindeer found fitting quarters; and that in the 
midst of this strange wealth of animal life man maintained a 
precarious existence, notwithstanding the seemingly unequal con- 
flict forced upon him by his dangers and his needs. 
That such were the denizens of our land down to a time when 
it received the main outlines of its present contour, we have learnt 
from the cavern researches of the present century, commencing in 
