Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 33.djvu/686

586 composed of dark-brown earth with blocks of limestone in it, firmly cemented together by stalagmite; the lower portion was of a softer texture, and passed gradually into the next bed.

The breccia contained a good many fragments of charcoal, together with worked flints and teeth of Hyæna &c., with numerous bones of the Hare and of some other animals.

4. The Cave-Earth.—The cave-earth of this cavern, where developed to its fullest extent, was found to consist of three divisions, the uppermost, 1 foot thick, being a reddish loamy earth (No. 2) with fragments of charcoal, and in one place a layer of the same, flint implements, a fragment of ruddle, and bones &c. of the Hare, Reindeer, and Hyæna. This dark bed was only found for a short distance; at 42 feet from the door it had disappeared; and here also the breccia was absent, except at the sides of the cave. A thin crust of stalagmite formed the surface.

A bed of lighter earth (No. 3) succeeded the red bed, and was present everywhere in the cave, varying in thickness from 1 foot to 2 feet. The usual bones and teeth of the Pleistocene Mammalia, including the Bear, Wolf, Woolly Rhinoceros, and Reindeer, were found in the cave-earth. In one place, 6 inches below the stalagmitic crust, a ramus of the lower jaw of the Hyæna, with its condyle and coronoid process intact, occurred: and near to it, under a large block of stone, were found part of the lower jaw of Cervus megaceros and a fine quartzite flake; fragments of charcoal were in contact with all these specimens.

The cave-earth here was only 1 foot thick. Somewhat further in the cavern, beneath 2 inches of breccia, a small circular bronze brooch was found; and not far from this point a small ivory counter or ornament, presumably of Roman or Romano-British workmanship, was dug up close to the surface.

5. The Mottled Bed.—The next bed we come to is a mottled one, very similar to that which has been described in connexion with the Robin-Hood Cave,—a bed of reddish cave-earth remarkably mottled with small angular fragments of very friable cream-coloured limestone, which at once suggested to us visions of almond-cake on a large scale. At about 50 feet from the door this bed was subdivided (fig. 13)—an upper layer with a brown matrix (No. 4 a), 9 inches thick, resting on the red bed (No. 4 b), which here was 3 feet in thickness. We found this to continue for a short distance only, when the mottled bed resumed its normal character (fig. 14). Bones, teeth, and implements, especially those of quartzite, were numerous in this mottled bed; amongst them were the pelvis of Rhinoceros tichorhinus, the scapula of the Mammoth, and teeth of Hyæna, Wolf, Bear, Rhinoceros, Horse, and Hare. In it also two or three fine bone implements were found, a perfect bone needle, some awls, and a kind of gouge—the awls being made from Hare-bones, the gouge from Reindeer-antler. The majority of the implements of stone were quartzite flakes and hammers; but there were also found with these some flint flakes and chips. The mottled bed was absent at the far end of Chamber A, at 120 feet from the door,