Page:Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man.djvu/189

Rh fissure, choked up to the roof with ossiferous loam, was then, for the first time, exposed to view. This great cavity, originally nine feet high and thirty-six wide, traversed the dolomitic conglomerate; and fragments of that rock, some angular and others water-worn, were scattered through the red mud of the cave, in which fossil remains were abundant. For an account of them and the position they occupied we are indebted to Mr. Dawkins, F.G.S., who, in company with Mr. Williamson, explored the cavern in 1859, and obtained from it the bones of the Hyæna spelæa in such numbers as to lead him to conclude that the cavern had for a long time been a hyæna's den. Among the accompanying animals found fossil in the same bone-earth, were observed Elephas primigenius, Rhinoceros tichorhinus, Ursus spelæus, Bos primigenius, Megaceros hybernicus, Cervus Tarandus (and other species of Cervus), Ursus spelæus, Felis spelæa, Canis Lupus, Canis Vulpes, and teeth and bones of the genus Equus in great numbers.

Intermixed with the above fossil bones were some arrowheads, made of bone, and many chipped flints, and chipped pieces of chert, a white or bleached flint weapon of the spear-head Amiens type, which was taken out of the undisturbed matrix by Mr. Williamson himself, together with a hyæna's tooth, showing that man had either been contemporaneous with or had preceded the extinct fauna. After penetrating thirty-four feet from the entrance, Mr. Dawkins found the cave bifurcating into two branches, one of which was vertical. By this rent, perhaps, some part of the contents of the cave may have been introduced.

When I examined the spot in 1860, after I had been shown some remains of the hyæna collected there, I felt convinced that a complete revolution must have taken place in the