Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 33.djvu/680

580 principal caverns simultaneously : these are the Robin-Hood Cave, and another, on the opposite side of the ravine, called the Church Hole.

At the beginning of the year a very considerable portion of the Robin-Hood Cave remained, as will be seen in the ground-plan, unexplored; thoroughly and carefully to clear this out formed a large part of our work. Great care has been taken to keep the contents of the different beds separate, each bed having been worked out, as far as possible, independently, and the earth riddled as it was removed to the mouth of the cave; the various objects found each day were separately packed and labelled. We trusted that by exercising this care we should be able to obtain as conclusive evidence as might be possible as to the occupation of the caves by man during the two stages of the Palæolithic period already alluded to.

1. The Talus.—The work was commenced, on June 19th, by cutting a trench through the talus outside the entrance of the cavern (fig. 1.). At a depth of 3 feet, the unproductive white calcareous sand with limestone blocks forming the lowest bed in the interior was met with; above this was a deposit of cave- earth, 1 foot thick, in which, near the mouth of the cavern, were a few flint chips, a fragment or two of worked flakes, and a few teeth and a portion of the jaw of Cervus megaceros, together with two or three teeth of Hyæna and Rhinoceros tichorhinus. Over the cave-earth was an old floor full of bits of charcoal, with pieces of coarse Roman earthenware in the lower part, and with more modern remains at the top. In this floor a few small fragments of human bones and some teeth occurred, as well as teeth of Sheep, Celtic Shorthorn, Hare, and Water-vole, together with some small bird-bones. The talus generally proved of very little interest; and it was resolved to proceed at once to the resumption of work in the interior.

The distribution and order of the various beds as they occur in this cavern will be best understood by comparing the sections taken at different points in the cave (figs. 2–7). Where all the beds are present they are at least five or six in number; but it will be seen that the whole series seldom, if ever, occurs at one spot.

2. The Surface-soil.—Below the numerous blocks of limestone which were plentifully spread over the floor, a thin surface-soil (1), seldom exceeding six inches in thickness, extended over the greater part of the cave. Just within a small square-cut entrance into Chamber C (fig. 8), which is known as Robin Hood's Parlour, the surface-soil was reddish with thin films of stalagmite enclosed in it (fig. 3); usually this soil was of a dark drab colour. In this uppermost bed in Chamber C an enamelled bronze fibula was found, very similar in shape and condition to one from the Victoria Cave figured by Prof. W. Boyd Dawkins in 'Cave-Hunting.' A small bronze graving-tool, double-pointed at one end, was obtained from the same bed; also a rudely carved bone ornament with a triangular