Page:The Geologist, volume 5.djvu/141

Rh cave yet filled to which it doubtless belongs, if we may judge from the fact that it still continues to receive the winter streams of muddy water. This hole is double, and each opening not more than a foot or eighteen inches in diameter.

"Or, again, there might have been anciently some lake in the vicinity of this cave ... to which these animals resorted nightly to quench their thirst, and bathe their unwieldy bodies. On its shores many would perish, some from old age, some from weakness induced by long journeys, especially in times of drought; the mud through which they had to struggle to the life-giving wave would be too much for them; they would be 'stagged,' to use the common term applied to horses and cattle so circumstanced in the lowlands of . . . Essex and elsewhere; some would become the prey of other animals. . . . Then, when the lake became enlarged by winter floods . . . many of these bones might be forced into the cave, and so preserved.

"At the time this cave was first discovered, geology had not so far progressed as to suggest the probability of finding human remains, which therefore were not noticed if present: neither did any flint weapons here attract attention.

"But when new opportunities of examining caves occur, as they are likely to do at Caldy Island, and at Lydstep, the examination should be conducted with much care, and reported with the greatest fidelity. Every circumstance is worthy of note: human bones may be found deep beneath the stalagmitic floor, and surrounded with the bones of extinct animals; but if it is forgotten that man in rude times was accustomed to bury in such places, and the state of the soil and surface, whether disturbed or otherwise, be not considered, of course false inferences will be drawn.

"As to the junction of Caldy with the mainland, it was distinctly remembered by old labourers twenty years ago, that at very low tides carts used to cross from Giltar to St. Margaret's; which latter island was connected with Caldy in such a way as to be also reached by carts, if we may infer as much from the remains of a road there.

"The vale of St. Florence too, it may be worth recording, appears to have recently undergone considerable changes of level. There is a place on the hill-side, halfway up that ancient estuary, still bearing the name of 'The Old Quay.'

"Let us look around us as we stand on the Castle Hill—or rather think what meets the eye of the mind from that elevation, at all points. How many remains of terrestrial vegetation are exposed to view by the equinoctial tides all around the coast. They occur, for instance, at Caldy in front, at Portclew to the right-hand, and at Amroth to the left; indeed, everywhere stumps and prostrate limbs of the oak and fir, not even greatly altered in colour internally, are constantly to be seen; together with the remains of a thick growth of underwood, the hazel roots yet retaining about their forks the very nuts that grew upon the branches. These can- not be very old: the shore then must recently have sunk beneath the sea in which these stumps stand rooted. Have we here the vestiges of those ancient forests we were looking for just now, in which the animals roamed, whose bones filled the caves we are describing? And did such areas as Broadmoor, and Kingsmoor, and some of the water-levelled valleys that terminate in thesea hereabouts, form the beds of those great lakes and rivers we were just now inquiring after, in which they wallowed? One thing is certain, that in dredging among these stumps in the bay the horns of ancient deer, corresponding with those of the cave deposits, are found; as in like manner the teeth of elephants are frequently dredged up on the