Explorations in the Bone Cave of Ballynamintra. 187 
occurrence was at twenty-three feet from the mouth, where the brown earth almost 
touched the roof, and beyond which the cave was completely filled to the roof with 
accumulations. Several objects of human art occurred in this stratum. Close 
outside the cave’s mouth, under the flanking wall to the right, was found in dark 
surface loam, by Professor Leith Adams, with bones of hare and goat, a polished celt 
(Plate XIII., fig. 5). Under the right flanking wall was also found, seven feet outside 
the entrance, a large flat amber bead (Plate XIIL, fig. 8). At fourteen feet within 
the entrance, by the left wall, there occurred in one of the beds of pebbles above- 
mentioned, and in the lower part of the first stratum, a long slender imple- 
ment of carved bone (Plate XIIL., fig. 3). Near this was the carved perforated bone 
(Plate XIIJ., fig. 9). There was also found either in the brown earth or the next 
stratum a small, flat, pointed bone implement (Plate XIIL, fig. 6), like the point 
of a netting needle broken off, and among the debris of various strata thrown out 
of the cave, two fragments of a vessel of rude hand-made povtery with indentations 
on the lip, and charred internally by fire (Plate XIII, fig. 7). The bone chisel. 
(Plate XIIL, fig. 4), and the knife handle (Plate XIIL., fig. 1), found in crevices of 
the rock may possibly have been of the same period as this stratum, as they lay in 
fissures of drainage that lead down from the horizon of the brown earth. Several 
of the sandstones found in the brown earth exhibit marks of human use similar to 
those so observable on stones from the second stratum. No. XLIV. is a tapering 
piece of purplish sandstone. It was ground down on both sides at the tapering 
end. This implement was found more than twenty feet outside the cave’s mouth 
in the brown earth. The striking-stones, Nos. XLVII. and XLVIII..are worn, flat- 
tish sandstones, whose edges are chipped, as if they had been used by man. They 
occurred in the same stratum, twelve feet within the cave’s mouth. 
No. 2.—The Grey Earth and Calcareous Tufa. 
Under, but clearly defined from the brown earth, was a grey stratum, its staple 
consisting of earth, rolled sandstones, and limestone fragments, apparently similar 
to the materials of the first stratum, but usually pervaded by carbonate of lime in 
the form known as cale tufa, some of which was in the friable state that has been 
called ‘lime froth.” This flood of calcareous tufa ceased outside the mouth of 
the cave (where the earth of the second stratum was only distinguishable from the 
brown earth by its paler colour). This calcareous material was first found choking 
some of the crevices in the right wall that sloped down to the large swallow- Hotes 
into which it apparently had flowed. In these crevices it formed a breccia con- 
taining bones of Irish elk, wolf, and bear with pebbles. On tracing it backwards 
from the cave’s mouth it was found permeating the earth of this stratum, to which 
it imparted its general grey colour, and in which it formed distinct whitish seams. 
From the fifteenth foot inwards on the left side of the cave this calcareous substance 
was found but a few inches in depth and free from admixture. It formed a hard 
Bit 2 
