Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 33.djvu/682

582 together. Flint chips and some fine flakes were found pretty generally distributed in the cave-earth; but they were far outnumbered by the rudely fashioned implements of quartzite. There were so many of these in all stages of wear as almost to suggest a manufactory of them. The most interesting, however, of the implements found here were two of clay ironstone. It will be remembered that last year an oval tool of this material was also discovered in this same cave-earth. The two implements now found are somewhat more leaf-shaped, one being a singularly perfect specimen, similar in form to many of the well-known river-gravel types: this was got from the Passage B; the other was found in Chamber G.

The most important of all our discoveries in the Robin Hood's Cave have yet to be recorded. In the cave-earth, about the middle of Chamber F, a small fragment of a bone (the rib of some animal) was observed by the writer to have marks of engraving upon it. These, on being brought to the light, we examined carefully; and Mr. Tiddeman, who was present at the time with Prof. Dawkins, at once noticed the rude picture of the fore part of a horse exactly similar to the Paleolithic figures that have been found in some of the continental caves. The value of this discovery, the first of its kind made in this country, need scarcely be insisted upon. But we have yet to record another discovery of as great, if not greater, importance. At the far end of Chamber F, in the same cave-earth, at a depth of about 1 foot, Prof. Dawkins had the good fortune to see extracted, by a workman, a canine of Machairodus latidens, an animal whose remains, as all will be aware, have only twice before been found in England—the Rev. J. M'Enery having obtained from Kent's Hole, many years ago, five canines and two incisors of that formidable animal, and a third incisor having been found as lately as 1872 in the same cavern. The discovery, therefore, of the Machairodus at Creswell in the undisturbed cave-earth is one of the greatest interest, which will be dwelt upon, in conjunction with all the details relating to the various remains found in these caves, in the accompanying paper by Prof. W. Boyd Dawkins.

5. The Mottled Bed.—Below the cave-earth in the front part of Chamber F, and also in chamber G, was a bed of earth (No. 4) mottled with numerous small angular fragments of limestone (fig. 4). Its thickness ranged from 1 to 2 feet; and it occupied only a limited part of the cavern, thinning out rapidly towards the back of Chamber F, where it was absent (fig. 5), and dying out in a similar way in Chamber G. The remains found in this bed were similar in character to those of the cave-earth, teeth and bones of the Pleistocene animals and quartzite implements being numerous.

6. The Red Sand.—The lowest bone-bearing bed in the Creswell caverns is one of red sandy earth (No. 5). In the Robin-Hood Cave this was found uniformly distributed over the whole floor, its average thickness being about 3 feet. In the large entrance (Chamber A), and under the breccia in the front part of Robin Hood's Parlour, there was a good deal of tough laminated red clay mingled with it. giving the bed in some places quite an argillaceous character.