Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 33.djvu/710

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This group of prehistoric and historic animals is identical with that which has been met with in the caves of Dowkerbottom, Kelko, and Victoria in Yorkshire, of Kirkhead in North Lancashire, of Poole's Cave, near Buxton, and of Thor's Cave, near Ashbourne, in Staffordshire; and in all these it is associated with the same set of human implements and ornaments, which are proved by the coins to belong to the period which lies between the departure of the Roman legions from Britain and the conquest by the English. All these caves, as may be seen by a reference to my work on 'Cave-hunting,' have been used as places of shelter by Brit-Welsh refugees flying from their homes before the face of the English invaders. They complete and round off the story of the conquest revealed by the lament of Gildas, and by the blackened ruins of the Roman towns and villages, and they testify to the truth of the views as to the nature of the English conquest held by the eminent historians Messrs. Green and E. A. Freeman.

The date of the occupation of these caves by the Brit-Welsh probably falls within the fifth or sixth centuries, and is not later than the time when that district fell into the power of the Mercian or Northumbrian Angles, an event which certainly took place when the kingdom of Elmet (district of Leeds and Bradford) was conquered at the close of the sixth century. The same group of remains may reasonably be looked for in all the caves which lie within the area fought over so long in this country, by the Brit-Welsh fragments of the Roman empire on the one hand, and the ruthless, exterminating English on the other, who won it with their own good swords, and whose descendants are now founding other Englands beyond seas by similar though less violent methods.

The bones, antlers, and teeth in these two caverns are divisible into three distinct groups, so far as relates to their condition:—(1) those which are gnawed by the Hyænas; (2) those which have been broken up and, in some cases, burnt by Man; (3) those which have been attacked by the carbonic acid in the rainwater which has percolated through the cave-earth and red sand.

By this last active agent they have sometimes been reduced to very fantastic forms. In some cases the enamel of the tooth is worn away, in others the dentine: many of the antler-tips have been so sharpened by it that they may readily be mistaken for human implements. That, for example, figured in my last paper (fig. 1) I now consider not to be of proved human workmanship. Wherever also the surface of the bone or antler has been crushed the chemical action has been intensified, and a hollow cavity is the result. In working out this point I am indebted to my colleague Prof. Schorlemmer, F.R.S., for proving it by experiment in his laboratory.

I have never observed the results of this chemical action so marked