THE BONE CAVES OF THE PLYMOUTH DISTRICT. 
97 
the original discoveries were made. The artificial cliff is nearly 
ninety feet high, and the floor of the bone-bearing fissure was 
about twenty feet from the surface, seventy feet therefore above 
the bottom of the quarry. We had to clamber up by the aid of a 
rope, 
The quarry, which faces north, had been worked in such a way 
as to leave a kind of rocky promontory, on each side of which the 
stone had been removed for a varying distance ranging up to fifty 
feet. The beds had the usual general dip, subject to slight varia- 
tions, a little west of south at an angle of about 30°. The rock 
was of a very open character, and the description by Dr. Buckland 
of the appearances of 1822 applies to it with singular appro- 
priateness. 
" There is an artificial cliff ninety feet in height, the face of 
which is perforated and intersected by large irregular cracks and 
cavities, 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. . . . 
Some of them have lateral communications with adjacent cavities, 
others are insulated and single; some rise almost vertically to- 
wards 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."* 
At the foot of the quarry, immediately beneath the cavity, was a 
talus of earth and clay mingled with fragments of limestone, in 
the more clayey portions of which were small fragments of bone. 
On ascending to the cave I found it had the appearance of a shelf. 
This was due to the fact that the men had opened on it longitu- 
dinally, and taken away the western side (it ran with the jointing 
nearly north and south, a little to the westward), while the eastern 
wall and the greater portion of the floor remained intact. The 
cave dipped with the bedding at an angle which would have 
brought it to the surface some fifty feet north of its northern 
extremity; but the rock there had long been worked away, and 
the quarrymen, although they had no doubt the cavern originally 
"came to grass" in that way, could not speak positively on the 
point. There was still remaining however tangible evidence of 
* " Reliquiae Diluvianae," p. 67. Cited "Devon. Assoc. Trans.," vol. v. 
part i. p. 260. 
VOL. VII. G 
