REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE. REESE LIBRARY UNIVERSIT CALIFORNIA Twelfth Report of the Committee for Exploring Kent's Cavern, Devonshire, the Committee consisting of JOHN EVANS, F.R.S., Sir JOHN LUBBOCK, Bart., F.R.S., EDWARD VIVIAN, M.A., GEORGE BUSK, F.R.S., WILLIAM BOYD DAWKINS, F.R.S., WILLIAM AYSHFORD SANFORD, F.G.S., JOHN EDWARD LEE, F.G.S., and WILLIAM PENGELLY, F.R.S. (Reporter). THE Eleventh Report, presented by the Committee to the Association during the Meeting at Bristol in 1875, and read to the Geological Section*, brought up the narrative of the exploration to the end of July of that year. From that date the work, which is still in progress, has been carried on uninterruptedly, in all respects as in previous years; and it is intended in the present Report to describe the researches made during the thirteen months ending 31st of August of the present year. Though the Committee have still the satisfaction of stating that they retain the valuable services of George Smerdon, foreman of the work, they have to add that Nicholas Luscombe, who had been engaged a short time before the Eleventh Report was drawn up, was obliged to leave very soon afterwards on account of illness, and that there was some difficulty in supplying his place, there being a great demand for labourers at Torquay. At the beginning of September, however, they engaged a young man named William Matthews, who has given complete satisfaction, and is still at work in the Cavern. The Superintendents have had the pleasure, as in former years, of conducting a large number of persons into the Cavern, of explaining to them on the spot the mode of working, and describing the facts which have been discovered, as well as of setting forth their bearing on Palæontology and Anthropology. The following may be mentioned as amongst the visitors since the Eleventh Report was presented:-Lord Erskine, Hon. J. C. Erskine, Sir J. L. Duntze, Sir L. Palk, Sir J. Walrond, Colonel Bridges, Colonel Buckle (Bangalore), Major Lang, Captain F. G. D. Watson, the Revds. Chancellor Benson, T. Hincks, W. R. Stevenson, and R. R. Wolfe, Dr. Boycott, Professors 1876. *See Report Brit. Assoc. 1875, pp. 1-13. B H. E. Roscoe and W. C. Williamson, and Messrs. A. S. Bicknell, G. E. Bicknell, H. C. Browne, J. L. Budgett, T. Budgett, G. Cheney, A. H. Clerk, E. Conway, W. W. Crowfoot, C. D. Engelhart (Stockholm), A. E. Fletcher, W. Francis, H. Green, C. Hart, H. Hayes, P. Hickson, S. J. Hickson, T. A. Hickson, E. Howard, A. D. Jessup (U. S. A.), A. J. Jones, E. C. Lang, C. J. Lilly, C. Pannel, G. Pycroft, N. F. Roberts, E. G. Stone, E. C. Tancock, R. H. Tiddeman, W. A. Trail, F. F. Tuckett, A. M. Turnbull (Natal), P. S. Wilkinson, R. W. Williamson, J. E. Wolfe, G. Wollen, and a large number of ladies. The Cavern has also been visited by numerous persons who have been attended by the "Guide," i. e. the foreman of the work, under arrangements laid down by the Superintendents. The Great Oven.-Your Committee stated last year that on the 27th of July, 1875 (five days before their Eleventh Report was drawn up), they began the exploration of the small passage or tunnel known as "The Great Oven," which connects with one another "The Cave of Inscriptions" and "The Bear's Den," the two remotest chambers of the Cavern. The Great Oven may be said to consist of three Reaches, the Eastern, Central, and Western, all of them, and especially the Central, being very contracted in height and width. The Western Reach (the only one which has been explored) extends tortuously, from its commencement in the south-west corner of the Cave of Inscriptions towards E.S.E., for a distance of 58 feet, where it is succeeded by the Central Reach, and throws off two branches, one in a northerly and the other in a southerly direction. At its mouth, or junction with the Cave of Inscriptions, it is 8 feet high from the limestone roof to the bottom of the usual four-feet excavation made by the Committee. Its width is commonly about 4 feet; but at one point it contracts to 3 feet, and at another expands to 7 feet. Throughout its entire length, and especially at and near the entrance, the roof and walls have the aspect of a well-worn watercourse. A few small lateral ramifications open out of the walls, almost all of them being quite empty and well worn by the action of flowing water. How far they extend cannot be determined, as they are too narrow for investigation. In the Western Reach of the Great Oven there was no continuous Floor of Stalagmite, though here and there portions of such a floor, perhaps never continuous, adhered to and projected from the walls; and pieces of stalagmite, as well as detached" Paps" of the same material, occurred in the deposit below. There was no reason to suppose that earlier explorers had everworked in this branch of the Cavern. As in the adjacent chambers and galleries, the deposits consisted of a thin layer of "Cave-earth" above, and "Breccia" below; and throughout the Reach the one lay immediately on the other, without any intermediate Crystalline Stalagmite, such as occurs in typical sections. At the entrance, and up to 34 feet from it, the usual four-feet sections failed to reach the bottom of the Breccia, so that its depth is undetermined; but at the point just named, the limestone floor was found at a depth of 3.5 feet below the upper surface of the Cave-earth; and thence to the inner end of the Reach the floor was found everywhere at a depth of 4 feet at most, and frequently at but little more than 2 feet, thus displaying a continuous Limestone Floor for a length of 24 feet--a fact without a parallel in the history of the exploration. At the innermost end the height of the Reach was 8.5 feet, from Limestone Roof to Limestone Floor. The upper surface of the Cave-earth was an irregularly inclined plane, ascending 8 feet from the entrance inwards, or rising at a mean gradient of about 1 in 7; whilst the Limestone Floor was inclined in the same direction at a higher mean gradient and with still greater irregularity. The discoveries in this branch of the Cavern were neither numerous nor important. The total number of "finds," including the few mentioned in the Eleventh Report, amounted to 50. The remains found in the Cave-earth included 2 teeth of Hyæna, 6 of Bear, 10 of Ox, 1 plate of a small molar of Mammoth, several bones and pieces of bone, including an astragalus of Horse, a few coprolites of Hyæna, a portion of a flint flake (No. 6672), and a flint chip (No. 6661). The flint flake (No. 6672) is of a pretty uniform cream-colour, almost a parallelogram in outline, 1-4 inch long, 7 inch broad, abruptly terminated at each end, one of which retains the original surface of the nodule from which it was struck, and 3 inch in greatest thickness, which it attains near the butt end. The inner face is slightly concave; the outer is very convex, and consists of three planes or facets, the central one commencing near the butt end, whilst those on each side of it extend the entire length of the flake. Its ridges and (excepting a very few small notches) its lateral edges are quite sharp, and show that it can have had little or no wear and tear in any way, and that in all probability it reached the spot in which it was found, not by the transporting action of water, but by human agency; in short, that man intentionally took it to, or accidentally left it in, one of the branches of the Cavern most remote from the known external entrances. It occurred with chips of bone, within a foot of the upper surface of the Cave-earth, 40 feet from the mouth of the Great Oven, on 13th October, 1875. The specimens found in the Breccia were 8 teeth of Bear and a few bones, none of which call for special description. Besides the foregoing, there were 2 teeth of Bear and some bones and pieces of bone found at and near the junction of the two deposits, where, there being no separating stalagmite, it was not always easy to determine whether they belonged to the Cave-earth or to the Breccia, without trusting entirely to the mineral characters of the specimens themselves. The Central or most contracted Reach, that from which the Great Oven more especially takes its name, is a perfectly empty tunnel, of elliptical transverse section, about 2.75 feet high and 3.25 feet wide, with roof and walls and floor so strikingly smooth as to denote a well-worn and completely filled watercourse, extending through the limestone in an easterly direction for a distance of 20 feet, where it is succeeded by the Eastern Reach, which finally terminates in the Bear's Den, whence its exploration can alone be undertaken. The two branches which the Western Reach throws off at its inner end, one on each side of the Central Reach, are filled with deposits from roof to floor; but as they are, at least at their entrances, very contracted in both height and breadth, as the deposits they contain form a most intractable concrete, and as the specimens found in their vicinity were comparatively few and unimportant, the Superintendents closed their attempts to explore them, at least for the present, and left the Great Oven on 27th October, 1875, having spent about three months on it. The Labyrinth.—Three branches of the Cavern, known as "The Charcoal Cave," "Underhay's Gallery," and "The Labyrinth," open out of the left or eastern wall of "The Long Arcade," described in previous Reports *. The first two have been explored and reported on t; but the Committee had undertaken no researches in the Labyrinth, the innermost and most important * See Reports Brit. Assoc. 1872, pp. 44-47; 1873, pp. 198-209; and 1874, pp. 3–6. + Ibid. 1872, pp. 38-44; and 1874, pp. 6-9. |