Chap28

[456]

CHAPTER XXVIII.

NEWER PLIOCENE EPOCH, CONTINUED—BONE-CAVES, AND TRACES OF MAN—MIGRATION OF TERRESTRIAL ANIMALS
INTO BRITAIN ACROSS THE DRIFT PLAINS—SUBSEQUENT SEPARATION OF BRITAIN FROM THE CONTINENT—DENUDATION OF THE COASTS OF BRITAIN.

I HAVE already said, and will here briefly recapitulate, that, during the Tertiary and later epochs, England has been repeatedly joined to the mainland: a circumstance proved by the mammalia that migrated hither after each successive emergence. Our Eocene terrestrial fauna, of a very antique type, is the same as that of the Eocene strata of France; our Miocene fauna (if the mammalia found in the Crag migrated hither in late Miocene times) is of the same general type as the fauna of some later Miocene phases of the Continent and this type, with important modifications, still continued after the Crag was raised out of the sea., and England was again joined to the Continent during the time that the vegetation of the 'Forest Bed' flourished. In the main the mammalian Miocene fauna of the world was the obvious predecessor of the fauna of the present day. The species are mostly different, the types mostly are the same.

In this 'Forest-bed,' elephants, hippopotami, rhinoceroses, horses, deer, oxen, pigs, a tiger, and bears, beavers, and other mammals abound, most of them of

[Glacial Epoch. 457]

extinct species. Such large mammalia, on any hypothesis, did not originate in a small detached island like England, but formed parts of large families that inhabited the north of Europe, America, and Asia, at various comparatively late periods of geological time, and they could only have passed into our area by the union of England with the Continent.

Again, in the south of England, at Selsey Bill, there are post-Pliocene strata on the sea-shore, described by Mr. Godwin-Austen, one of the beds containing species of living marine shells, not belonging to icy seas, and overlaid by icy Boulder-drift. In the former there were found the remains of a well-known species of elephant, E. antiquus, lying on clay, on which stumps of trees, the remains of an old wood, still stand.

These Boulder-clays were formed during a period of cold, accompanied by the great glaciers that covered so much of the north of Europe, as I have already explained. While, or after the glaciers were largest, the country slowly sank, and, severed from the mainland, became merely groups of islands. But it was again elevated, and there is evidence that it was then united to the Continent, for we find in later deposits the remains of a number of terrestrial animals, some of the species of which are unknown in the older formations. The Elephants which lived before this time must have been driven out of our area by that submergence, unless some of them, with other mammalia, managed to live on in the extreme south of what is now England, which apparently suffered a smaller change of level. Farther north, such large animals as the Elephant, Rhinoceros, and Hippopotamus could not have lived on mere groups of icy islands, on which vegetation must have been scanty. They required a large amount of vegetation

[458 Glacial Epoch.]

to feed on, and therefore they must have died out or been banished from our area by that partial submergence, the rivers of which, under any climatic conditions, could not have been sufficiently large to support numerous Hippopotami. We find, however, that on the re-elevation of the country, it must have been reunited to the Continent, because the great hairy elephant Elep has prirnigenius, again appears, associated with a number of other animals that, after the re-elevation of the land, migrated from the Continent of Europe to our area, the bones of which are found in the old alluvia of rivers, partly of older and partly of younger date than the Glacial period. If, as is often stated, E. primigenius occur in the Forest-bed, then, in the opinion of most of our geologists, it lived in the British area before the beginning of the Glacial epoch, and therefore I say that the Mammoth reappeared, and as that great elephant is found in Scotland in early inter-glacial strata, it seems by no means improbable that he obtained a footing in our area in pre-glacial times.

This, indeed, is only one of several migrations of mammalia, that took place both from and into our country during various episodes that occurred in the long-continued Glacial epoch. It was for some time the fashion to attribute the occurrence in such superficial deposits of what may be called conflicting faunas, to the annual changes of summer and winter temperatures. In this way it was attempted to account for the presence of Lions, Hynas, Hippopotami, &c., in strata supposed to be precisely of the same age with those that contain the bones of Reindeer, Mammoths, Musk-sheep (Ovibos moschatus), and White Bears. When the glaciers and the cold declined in summer, and ice disappeared from the rivers, then the Hippopotami made a raid to

[Bone Caves. 459]

the north accompanied by Lions and Hyenas, and when the winter cold returned they retreated further south, leaving such snowy land as there was in exclusive possession of White Bears, Musk-sheep, Reindeer, and perhaps hairy Mammoths with a warm coat of wool beneath the long hair. But with the advance of research interglacial episodes began to be established, when, in the language of Mr. James Geikie, there took place 'a great recession of the confluent glaciers consequent upon a change of climate.'¹

In connection with this subject it is now necessary to say something of the bones found in limestone caves, especially as the subject is intimately connected, not only with a large and partially extinct mammalian fauna, but also with the presence of man as a hunting denizen of the British area, at the time in which these carnivorous and browsing mammalia roamed the country.

Bone-caves are often of very old date, and always occur in limestone strata, in which they have been formed in consequence of part of the carbonate of lime having been dissolved. Most solid limestone rocks are jointed: that is to say, they are parted by narrow fissures, often vertical, through which water that falls on the surface can easily find its way. Rain-water percolates through the joints, and the carbonic acid, picked up by the water as it falls through the air, by degrees dissolves part of the limestone, and carries it away in solution in the form of bicarbonate of lime. Running in underground channels, caves have thus been formed, often of great extent, and branching in many directions, through which streams sometimes still run.²

¹ The Great Ice Age,' p. 339, second edition.
² The great limestone caves of Kentucky form the most

[460 Bone Caves.]

Close to Clapham, in Yorkshire, in the grounds of Ingleborough, such a cave runs from the side of a limestone gorge into the hill, 800 yards in length, and no doubt further if it were followed. From its top, 'like natural sculpture in cathedral cavern,' beautiful stalactitic pendants and pillars descend to the floor; delicate open arcades run along the ledges, large fretted accretions of stalagmite swell out in the angles of the cavern between the floor and sides, and great flat pendants of stalactite hang like petrified banners from the walls. Sometimes the cavern runs in a long low gallery, sometimes it rises into high chambers, scooped into ogee arches; and wherever a chamber occurs, there we find a joint in the rocks, through which water from above percolates, and continues the work of sculpture. The whole is the result of the dissolving of carbonate of lime by carbonic acid in the water; and modern drippings and a rivulet in the cavern still carry on the work through all its length. White rats live in the cave, and freshwater shrimps, perhaps washed from above, have been seen in the brooklet; but I am not aware that any fossil bones have been found in it, though they are common in other caverns in the same county near Settle, in the Carboniferous Limestone of Derbyshire, North and South Wales, the Mendip Hills, and in the limestone caverns of many other parts of England.

It is impossible to fix with absolute accuracy the precise age of sueh caves, or the time when all the bones that are fouud in them were buried there; for the

prominent examples. At Ottawa a large part of the river falls into a chasm in Silurian limestone and is seen no more. The porte du Rhône. below the Lake of Geneva, is a minor example. The Caldes of Yorkshire, where large brooks flow from limestone caves at the sides of the valleys of mountain limestone, are well known. I have already, p. 436, mentioned others in the Jura.

[Bone Caves. 461]

wearing out of the caves has been going on for unknown periods of time, and some of them may have been filled with sediments, perhaps charged with bones, again and again. There is often proof that, by underground changes of waterfiow, old consolidated gravels that filled them to the roof have been, at various periods, forcibly cleared out by natural means. When, therefore, we find bones in these caverns, mixed with red loam, sand, graves, and angular fragments of rock, it is very difficult, and perhaps sometimes impossible, to define to what precise minor period they belong; for, viewed on a large scale, all periods from later Miocene times downwards are minor periods.

In such caves the bones of extinct mammals, probably of pre-Glacial, and certainly sometimes of Glacial times, are found, together with the remains of species that still inhabit our country and the Continent of Europe; and as it is hard to separate them, I must devote these paragraphs to caves in general.

Sometimes the skeletons, or parts of them, seem to have found their way in through the mouths of the caverns; more frequently they were washed in through 'pot-holes' and openings in their roofs. On the verge of the mouths of large bell-shaped pot-holes, on the Carboniferous Limestone plateaux of Yorkshire, under which we hear the water rushing, I have often seen the carcases, or detached bones, of sheep waiting for a flood to be carried below.

Sometimes the detached bones of animals, or the animals themselves, have been dragged in by beasts of prey, such as Bears and Hyænas, that inhabited these caves. One evidence of this is, that the bones are frequently gnawed, and still bear the marks of the teeth of carnivora, as first shown by Dr. Buckland; and

[462 Bone Caves.]

another, that the angles of the caverns themselves are occasionally smooth, having been polished by the animals rubbing against the rock, as they passed by corners and along other uneven surfaces on their way into and out of their dens.

I repeat that there is no doubt that many of these caves date from before the Glacial epoch, and therefore that the hones of animals must have found their way into some of them before that period, 'while yet our England was a wolfish den'; and since the glaciers died away many of the caves have been more or less tenanted down to the present day, or bones have been at intervals washed into them; and thus it happens, that organic remains of older date than the Glacial epoch may be found in the same cave with bones belonging to that period, and to minor epochs that come down to historical times, and even to our own day.

Mingled with the bones of extinct and modern species in England and Wales, flint implements, and other works of man, have been found; and though it has often been said that these are of later date than the remains of extinct species sometimes found in the glacial deposits, it has not only not been proved that this is the case, but in my opinion, and in that of many competent judges, the very opposite view has been reduced to a demonstration. Some of the Devonshire caves in which works of man were found, having apparently been above the sea during the whole of the Glacial epoch men frequented them. Others farther north, like that of Cefn in North Wales, were below the sea during part of the Glacial epoch, for the boulderbeds reach a higher level; and, with Dr. Falconer, I found fragments of marine shells of the drift in the

[Bone Caves. 463]

cave overlying the detritus that held the bones of elephants and other mammalia. No human remains were found in that cavern. During part of the time some of the caves in the south of England seem to have been inhabited, while others farther north lay underneath the ice-sheet, so that part of the northern land was desolate, and for a time uninhabited by beast or man. This, however, is certain, that man, the Mammoth, and other extinct mammalia, were contemporaneous, and to make this general statement more definite, I shall give a condensed account of the proofs on which it rests, selecting for that purpose some of the caves that have been explored by competent observers.

First, however, I will observe that the bones of wild animals, together with implements made by man, have in all the caverns generally been preserved in much the same manner. As already stated, they were often washed into caverns from above through fissures, and sometimes they were carried in by beasts of prey through the mouths of dry caves. Often, in some of the lower strata of caverns, they lie in a red loamy earth mixed with stones. Over this there frequently lies a thick deposit of stalagmite or carbonate of lime, deposited from water dropping from the roofs of the caverns. Some caves are, or have been, filled or almost filled, with stalagmite, and in it bones, horns, and other relics are buried. In this way bones became sealed up in the caves safe from the effects of air and, to some extent, of moisture; and the result has been the natural burial and preservation of those old races of animals that formerly inhabited our land.

At least thirty-six British caves have been recorded as holding the remains of terrestrial mammalia, and

[464 Victoria Cave.]

doubtless the list will be largely increased. I will arrange those I have to notice geographically, beginning with the north of England, and I may mention that England is peculiarly fortunate in the possession of so many dens and caverns, most of which have been excavated by natural processes in Carboniferous Limestone, which forms such large tracts of country both in England and Wales. The remainder are chiefly in the Devonian Limestone of Devonshire, while a few are in Oolitic or other limestone strata. In connection with this subject, it is worthy of remark, that the poverty of Scotland in the fossilised bones of Elephants, Hippopotami, Rhinoceroses, Lions, and perhaps of man or his works, is, doubtless, chiefly due to the general absence in that country of large masses of Carboniferous Limestone, while Ireland, more than half the surface of which is made of Carboniferous Limestone, will probably yield a rich crop of such organic remains, when leisure permits people to search for them.

The Victoria Cave, near Settle in Yorkshire, is entered at the base of a Scar in the Carboniferous Limestone, at a height of about 1,450 feet above the sea. Since 1870, it has been carefully excavated under a trustworthy committee, and reports have been issued on the subject by Professor Boyd Dawkins, and since 1873 by Mr. R. H. Tiddeman of the Geological Survey. The mouth of the cave was at first much obscured by talus, fallen from the cliff or Scar, and when this was removed, a layer was found inside the cavern, partly composed of charcoal and burnt, bones. It was on this layer that the original discoverer of the cavern, Mr. Jackson of Settle, found, in 1838, coins, iron spear-heads, brooches, and many other articles, all pointing to the fact that the cave had been

[Victoria Cave. 465]

tenanted during, or not long after, the Roman occupation of Britain. All this comes easily within the range of what may be called modern history.

Beneath this stratum there lies partly at the entrance of the cavern an accumulation of angular stones, about six feet thick, at the base of which, resting on grey clay, there occurred charcoal, a bone bead, flint flakes, and broken bones of the Brown Bear, Stag, Horse, and Bos 1ongifrons (Celtic shorthorn). Professor Dawkins guardedly speculates on the date of this human occupation, as having been 'about 4,000 or 5,000 years ago,'¹ a moderate computation of a portion of backward time that few will grudge, and which to my mind seems short compared with the earlier history of man and other mammalia in relation to this cavern.

Beneath these shingly deposits at the entrance of the cave, and 'at the base of all the talus'² there was found a genuine glacial Boulder-clay, charged with ice-scratched stones and boulders, consisting of upper Carboniferous black limestone derived from the north, conglomerates from the base of the Carboniferous Lime. stone also from the north, while other boulders consisted of Carboniferous sandstones, and 'a very large proportion of Silurian rocks,' the nearest large areas of which are in Cumbria and the south of Scotland. The extent of these Boulder-clays ha been proved over at area of 1,200 square feet, and this lies upon the edges of deposits of grey clay, and a lower reddish cave-earth, which is a kind of loam peculiar to many bone-caves. The local absence of Boulder-clay on the ground at the top of the cliff, shows that the material could not have fallen from above before the accumulation of the

¹ 'Cave Hunting,' p. 115.
² R. H. Tiddeman, Victoria Cave Exploration Committee, 1875.

[466 Victoria Cave.]

shingly débris called 'screes,' and, in Mr. Tiddemans opinion, this Boulder-clay forms part of the groundmoraine of a great glacier coming from the north, such as that described in Chapter XXIV.

'The bones in the caverns,' says Mr. Tiddeman, 'appear to group themselves chiefly along two horizons, which are separated from one another by a greater or less thickness of cave-earth, laminated clay, and stalagmite.' The organic remains found in these beds are arranged by him as follows :—

The general assemblage closely resembles that found in 1821 by Dr. Buckland in the famous Kirkdale Cave in the Vale of Pickering in Yorkshire, and such as is also known in the Dream Cave, and others near Wirksworth in Derbyshire. In the Victoria Cave all the bones in the lower bed are marked by the gnawing of the teeth of Hyarnas. One bone from this bed is of special interest, a fragment which Mr. Busk identified as part of a human fibula. No one doubts the existence of man along with the modern fauna of the upper bed, which is later than the Boulderclay. But a man co-existent with a Glacial, or probably a preGlacial fauna, is a very different matter, and, accordingly, some eminent osteologists have lately declared that though they cannot assert that the fragment is not part of the bone of a man, on the other hand they

[Caves, Creswell Crags. 467]

cannot deny that it may just as well be part of the fibula of a bear.

On a point such as this, though I have been in the cave, I have no claim to form an opinion, but subsequent paragraphs will show that though at present the question has not been decided by the evidence yielded by the Victoria Cave, there are yet grounds for the certain belief, that man in the British area lived in inter-Glacial and probably even in pre-Glacial times.

The next caves I shall mention are, like the Victoria Cave, of unusual importance, because of their contents and the careful manner in which they have been explored by the Rev. J. Magens Mello and Mr. Thomas Heath, assisted in the determination of species by Professor Boyd Dawkins. These caverns occur in the Magnesian Limestone (Permian) of Creswell Crags in Derbyshire, about ten miles ENE. of Chesterfield, and two miles SSE. of Whitwell. Three of the explored caves are known by the names of Robin Hood's Cave, the Pin Hole, and Church Hole.

In the first-named the layers consist in descending order of:

1. Stalagmite, 2 ft.
2. Breccia, with bones and flint implements, 1 ft. 6 in.
3. Cave-earth, with bones and implements, 1 ft.. 9 in.
4. Mottled bed, with bones and implements, 2 ft.
5. Red sand, with bones and quartzite implements.

The upper soil. in the cavern 'yielded traces of Romano-British occupation, such as enamelled bronze fibula, fragments of pottery,' &c. 'In the surface soil and in the upper part of the Breccia (No. 2), there occur some bones of the domestic hog, goat, sheep, and Celtic shorthorn, but no implements of a Neolithic type were found associated with these.' Beneath this upper part,

[468 Caves, Creswell Crags.]

the explorers found 'teeth and bones of the bear, the fox, the hare, the reindeer, the hyæna, and the woolly rhinoceros and horse. Together with these were found numerous flint implements, mostly chips and flakes, but some few of them were carefully wrought lanceolate weapons, trimmed on either side.'

'The cave-earth below the Breccia contained the relics of a similar fauna, with one or two additions, but a different type of implements was met with . . . none presenting the more elaborately-shaped forms of those of the Breccia.' One or two are of bone, and numerous implements of quartzite rudely fashioned from water-worn pebbles, and, as pointed out by Professor Dawkins, they are of an earlier type than those found in the overlying Breccia.

The red sand bed at the base of all also contained relics of most of the animals common in the overlying strata, but no traces of human bones or works have yet been found therein.

Exclusive of the uppermost part of the Breccia, No. 2, the following remains of Mammalia have been found: Man, Lion (var. Felis spelœa), Hyœna spelœa, the Fox, Wolf, Bears (Ursus ferox and U. arctos), Cervus Megaceros (great Irish deer), Reindeer, Bison priscus, Horse, Rhinoceros tichorhinus, Elephas primigenius (Mammoth), Pig and Hare.

One point seems to be certain, that between the Romano-British epoch and the sub-epochs recorded in the table of strata given above there is a great gulf. From the historical epoch we make a sudden leap 'in the dark backward and abysm of time,' into the elephantine era of Paleolithic man, for no instrument of Neolithic type has been found in any of the caverns. Further, the remains indicate two climatal stages, 'when

[Cefn Cave. 469]

man, the hunter and fisherman, endured all the vicissitudes of a climate, at one time mild enough for the Hippopotamus to be an occupant of the Yorkshire rivers, at another so severe that amid the snow and ice of an Arctic winter he would have to struggle for existence in company with the Reindeer, the Glutton, and the Arctic Fox.'

As these and many other caves of England are doubtless of pre-glacial origin as to their original scooping out, it may well be that some of the bones are as old as those found beneath the boulderbeds of the Victoria Cave, but of this there is no absolute proof.

The next caves I have to mention are those on the western side of the Vale of Clwyd, which lie in the escarpment of the Carboniferous Limestone that rises from under the New Red Sandstone which fills the lower part of the valley. One of these is the well-known bone-bearing cave of Cefn, described in 1833 by Mr. Stanley, afterwards Bishop of Norwich. This cave and part of its contents I have seen along with Mrs. Wynn of Cefn, and the late Dr. Falconer, whose researches on the extinct mammalia of India are so well known. Among the bones found in the cave are Elephas antiquus (the ancient representative of the modern African elephant), Rhinoceros hemitœchus, Hippopotamus, Cave-Bear, Spotted Hyæna, and Reindeer. In this cave a human skull and cut antlers of a stag were discovered 'in the lower entrance,' as described by Professor Boyd Dawkins, but no attempt has been made to separate the flint implements found in these caves into Palæolithic and Neolithic;¹ nor has anyone determined that any of the bones belonged to distinct

¹ See pp. 540 and 545 for figures of Palæolithic and Neolithic flint implements.

[470 Paviland Cave.]

pre-Glacial, inter-Glacial, or post-Glacial epochs. My own strong impression—for I may not call it conviction—is, that some or all of the bones found a way into the Cefn Cave before the partial submersion of Wales during the Glacial epoch, and were sealed therein before the shelly sands were deposited in the cavern, as recorded at page 462.

It is certain that the Vale of Clwyd at that time was occupied by the sea, for the Boulder-clay of the banks of the River Elwy is charged with well-preserved sea-shells, and if Moel Tryfan was submerged 1,175 feet, it is unlikely that the Vale of Clwyd did not suffer something like an equal submergence. Elephas antiquus and Elephas primigenius are alike known as animals that lived, the last in Glacial, and the former, in pre-Glacial time, and if, as I believe, the former be the ancestral precursor of the African, and the latter of the Indian elephant, it may be hard to determine which has the oldest ancestry as a distinct species, while it is by no means certain that both species may not have crossed into the British area before the advent of the Glacial epoch.

Going further south, the limestone cliffs of the promontory of Gower are penetrated by no fewer than ten caverns, all of which have been more or less explored—one, the Paviland Cave, by Dr. Buckland in 1823, and the others by Colonel Wood since 1848. They yielded a vast number of bones, according to Falconer of almost every species elsewhere known in British caves, including E. primigenius and E. antiquus, Rhinoceros primigenius, and R. hemitœchus, Hippopotamus major, Hyæna, Cave-Bear, Wolf, Fox, &c., and in one cave, called Bosco's Den, there were found a thousand shed antlers of the Reindeer,

[Paviland Cave. 471]

which were extracted by Colonel Wood. In one of the caves, called Long Hole, he made the important discovery of Rhinoceros tichorhinus, and R. hemitœchus, along with manufactured flint knives in the same undisturbed deposit.

in the Paviland Cave, which was unscientifically opened before it was visited by Dr. Buckland, there were found the remains of the Mammoth, Woolly Rhinoceros, Hyæna, Cave-Bear, and many other animals in red earth, under the usual crust of stalagmite which formed the upper floor. With these was found a human skeleton, stained red by infiltration of an oxide of iron, and called by the quarrymen, 'the red lady of Paviland.' According to Dr. Buckland, the contents of the cavern seemed to have been disturbed by old diggings, and it was therefore his opinion that the body had been buried there at some ancient time. This cave must probably have been inhabited, for charcoal and sea-shells of edible species were found in it, and near the skeleton some carved beads and ornaments of ivory, possibly made from the tusks of the Mammoth, which with the skull lay close by the body. It is also said that a small chipped flint was found in the same place.

I have no doubt that the antiquity of this famous skeleton must be very great, but who can tell how old, not in years, but according to standards of comparative geological antiquity? Even though the debris had been disturbed there is no valid reason why the man should not have been coeval with the Mammoth and his contemporary Mammalia, for the figure of that great hairy elephant, with its enormous curved tusks carved on its own ivory, has been found at La Madelaine in the Dordogne; and in Denmark there was found a skull of this species with a flint arrow-head sticking in the

[472 Caldy Cave.]

bone. How late they survived in Europe no written history tells, though the unwritten history of flint weapons in caverns shows that Palæolithic man hunted the great beast; while in Asia, as all readers know, his whole body has more than once in summer dropped out of the frozen mud cliffs of the great Siberian rivers, a region in which he, perhaps, survived very much later than in Europe. We may be permitted to regret that 'the red lady of Paviland' was exhumed 44 years ago, long before the art of 'Cave Hunting' ranked as a branch of palontological science in which an early history of man is involved.

On the west side of Caermarthen Bay lies Caldy Island, about a mile from the Pembrokeshire shore, near Tenby. About forty years ago a cave was discovered there in the northern sea-cliff, which was quarried for limestone, and which I visited with Dr. Buckland in 1841, when the last relics of the cavern were disappearing under the operations of the quarrymen. Bones and teeth of Mammoths, Rhinoceroses, Hyænas, Lions, and other Mammalia common in such caves occurred in abundance, and I well remember the glee with which Dr. Buckland on his knees gathered the bony harvest into a large silk bandana, while surreptitiously I sketched him in the act. Other caves have since been explored in Caldy, and on the mainland of Pembrokeshire, with like results.

I specially mention the caves in Caldy, because they help to prove the long lapse of time that has taken place since so many great mammals lived on ground, part of which is now only an island one mile in length. It must indeed have taken a great number of years for atmospheric influences and sea waves to have worn a channel a mile in width so as to separate the island

[Caves, Mendid Hills. 473]

from the mainland, for the waste of sea cliffs as hard as the Carboniferous Limestone is so slow, that the lifetime of generations of men sees but little change in their outlines, and rude camps and earthworks of unknown age even now stand on many a hard rocky promontory, almost as fresh as the day when they were first constructed. These were my first reflections when I saw the traces of the old mammalian inhabitants of what now is Caldy, and the same train of thought is entertained by Professor Dawkins in his book on 'Cave Hunting.' They are sufficiently obvious to all who are not imbued with a sense of unprovable and needless cataclysmic forces.

On the eastern side of the upper part of Bristol Channel, the Mendip Hills, and other large bosses of Carboniferous Limestone, are seamed by numerous caverns charged with bones. Taken all in all, the assemblage is much the same as that found in the caves already mentioned, and like some of these, the bones, as remarked by Dr. Buckland, were carried into underground waterchannels by streams falling into swallowholes. This involves a very considerable change in the physical geography of the region since these streams ran. Unless the Carboniferous Limestone be more or less coated with impermeable strata, such as Red Marl, Lias clay, or Boulder-clay, the rain immediately sinks through innumerable joints open to the surface, and thus it happens that rivers, or even unimportant brooks, are rare in tracts formed exclusively of masses of limestone. From the evidence of outlying remnants, it seems probable that the Mendip Hills were once extensively covered by a thin casing of Lias clay, over which streams ran in the Pleistocene epoch, and carried the bones of dead animals into swallow-holes, just as at

[474 Wookey Hole.]

the present day, in the upper valleys of the Jura, good-sized streams are engulfed in swallowholes of marly Miocene beds, to pass into the Jurassic limestones below, and again to reappear as ready-made rivers in deep transverse valleys, as, for example, in the Val de Travers below Combe Varin. The removal from the surface of the Mendip Hills of such strata by ordinary denuding agents, must have occupied a period of time long and of unknown duration.

There is, however, another view of the subject which cannot fail to strike a reflective mind with wonder, speaking as it does so strongly of time. In those caves which were not hyæna dens, thousands of bones of grazing animals and of carnivora, are found crowded together 'in most admired confusion.' Lions and hyænas did not specially prefer to devour their prey at the mouths of swallow-holes, nor was the surface of the ground strewn broadcast with bones of carnivora and other mammals, like gravel-stones on many a fresh ploughed field; and when we think of bones, horns, and teeth, 'by the thousand,' in so many large caverns, most of which must have been washed in by very slow degrees, the mind, for this reason alone, becomes powerfully impressed with the idea of the long endurance of so-called Pleistocene time.

On the south side of the Mendip Hills, about a mile and a half north-west of Wells, there is a hyæna den called Wookey Hole, which has been hollowed out in the dolomitic conglomerate, which in so many places fringes and lies unconformably on the Carboniferous Limestone.

This cave was discovered in 1852, and from 1859 to 1863 it was systematically explored by Professor Boyd Dawkins, the Rev. J. Williamson, and Messrs. Willett,

[Wookey Hole. 475]

Parker, and Ayshford Sanford. Professor Dawkins gives an admirable account of the work in his 'Cave Hunting,' to which I must refer my readers for a number of interesting and graphic details. When first opened in 1852 'the workmen found more than 300 Roman coins, among which were those of Allectus and Commodus.' As the work progressed year by year, and the contents of the cave were cleared out and examined, vast numbers of bones and teeth and horns were discovered, under conditions which proved that they were not introduced by water, but that the cavern had been a veritable hyæna den, which at intervals had also been occupied by savage men, as the occurrence of charcoal, calcined bones, and distinctly formed implements of flint and chert clearly testified. All of these implements are of Palaeolithic type (see fig. 112, p. 540).

To give an idea of the quantity of bones, Mr. Dawkins states that 'the remains obtained in 1862-3, from 3,000 to 4,000 in number, afford a vivid picture of the animal life of the time in Somerset. They belong to the following animals, the implements representing the presence of Man:—

The remains of these animals were so intermingled, that they must have been living at the same time.' I cannot refrain from adding Mr. Dawkins' vivid description 'of the condition of things at the time the hyæna

[476 Kent's Hole.]

den was inhabited. The hyænas were the normal occupants of the cave, and thither they brought their prey. We can realise these animals pursuing elephants and rhinoceroses along the slopes of the Mendip till they scared them into the precipitous ravine, or watching until the strength of a disabled bear or lion ebbed away sufficiently to allow of its being overcome by their cowardly strength. Man appeared from time to time upon the scene—a miserable savage armed with bow and spear, unacquainted with metals, but defended from the cold by coats of skin. Sometimes he took possession of the den and drove out the hyænas—for it is impossible for both to have lived in the same cave at the same time. He kindled his fires at the entrance to cook his food and to keep away the wild animals; then he went away, and the hyænas came back to their old abode.'

Kent's Hole, near Torquay, in Devonshire, has long been one of the most famous caverns in England. Mr. Pengelly, F.R.S., has given an extensive account of the 'Literature of Kent's Cavern' in the 'Transactions of the Devonshire Association,' from which it appears that Mr. Thomas Northmore of Exeter first dug through the stalagmitic covering, and 'exclaiming with joy, "Here it is!" pulled out an old worn-down tusk of a Hyæna, and soon afterwards a metatarsal bone of the Cavern-Bear,' and among twenty or thirty other teeth and bones 'were two jaws, upper and lower, of either the Wolf or the Fox.' In 1827, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Henry De la Beche mentions the cavern as 'celebrated on account of the remains of elephants, rhinoceroses, hyænas, bears, deer, wolves, &c.,' and specially connects this discovery with the name of the Rev. John McEnery, who had previously made a valuable collection of such

[Kent's Hole. 477]

remains with the intention of publishing a descriptive account of his CAVERN RESEARCHES. The manuscript, which was in the possession of Mr. E. Vivian, who published portions of it, has wisely been printed entire by Mr. Pengelly with all its imperfections. When it was begun no one knows, but 'some portions of it are certainly not older than the year 1836 . . . and no portion can be assigned to a later date than 1840, as the author's decease took place on February 18, 1841.'

To analyse the whole of Mr. McEnery's mutilated fasciculus is needless in a work like this, and it is enough to state that under the upper and lower stalagmites he recognised the bones and teeth of the Mammoth (E. primigenius), Rhinoceros, Horse, Ox, (bison?) Irish Elk (Cervus megaceros), Red Deer, Stag, Fallow Deer, Reindeer, Bears (Ursus cultridems, U. Spelœus, U. Arctoideus, U. Priscus), Hyæna, Wolf, and doubtless others unnamed.¹ He specially recognised that the bones had been gnawed, and also insists on the fact that flint implements occur in intimate association with the bones. In 1840 Mr. Godwin-Austen makes the remark that 'arrowheads and knives of flint occur in all parts of the cave and throughout the entire thickness of the clay, and no distinction, founded on condition, distribution, or relative position, can be observed whereby the human can be separated from the other reliquiæ;² and further on he adds, 'there is no ground why we should separate man from that period and those accidents when and by which the cave was filled.' The breadth of these remarks (unacceptable at the time), by an experienced observer, who has on this and other

¹ I print these from the imperfect Fasciculus G as they stand, with the exception of the Wolf, mentioned elsewhere.
² 'Trans. Geol. Soc.,' London, second series, vol. vi.. t. 2, p. 444.

[478 Brixham Cave.]

subjects often been years before his time, left but little in the way of theory for subsequent observers, though there still remains plenty of work in detail.

All the flint instruments and flakes found in this cavern below the upper stalagmite, are of palœolithic types, a fact of much importance¹ in relation to the antiquity of man.

The last cave that I shall mention is that of Brixham, Devonshire, in the limestone that forms the south side of Tor Bay. It was discovered in 1858, and Mr. Pengelly at once saw the necessity of securing the right of exploration, so as to ensure the most accurate possible examination of its contents and the mode of their occurrence. Of this committee I happened to be one of the members, and to 'Mr. Pengelly the committee are indebted for the active and constant superintendence of the work and for the record of each day's proceedings.'² In the same summer I visited the cave with Dr. Falconer and Mr. Pengelly, and made a plan of it; and at a later date it was resurveyed by Mr. Bristow, whose plan is published in the 'Philosophical Transactions,' to accompany the report drawn up by Mr. Prestwich. At that time the stalagmitic floor of the cavern was mostly undisturbed, and a Reindeer's horn was firmly cemented in the stalagmite. In the first six weeks of the workings about 1,500 bones were exhumed, a large number of which belonged 'to skeletons of small animals, like the Rabbit and Fox, found near the surface.'

In part of the cave, which has many ramifications,

¹ See 'Ancient Stone Implements, &c.' by John Evans, F.R.S., F.S.A. &c. pp. 442-466.
² Report on the exploration of the Brigham Cave, 'Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society,' 1873, vol. clxiii. p. 475.

[Brixham Cave. 479]

the section was subsequently proved to be as follows, in descending order:

FIG. 96.

1. Devonian Limestone.
2. Stalagmite.
3. Breccia.
4. Black bed.
5. Cave-earth.
6. Shingle.
v. Valley.

The cave is about 66 feet above the bottom of the valley V.

The exploration, as far as it could conveniently be followed, was completed in the summer of 1859, the work having been carried on in galleries, which, with many ramifications, comprised a space measuring 135 feet from north to south and 100 from east to west, as reported by Mr. Pengelly.

In the abstract of the report by Professor Prestwich, published in the 'Proceedings of the Royal Society,' vol. xx. 1872, it is stated that 'mammalian remains were found sparingly in the stalagmite, No. 2, in abundance in the cave-earth, No. 5, and rarely in the shingle, No. 6.' They are of the following species: Elephas primigenius (Mammoth), Rhinoceros tichorhinus (Woolly Rhinoceros), Equus caballus (common Horse), Bos primigenius, Bos taurus (common Ox), Cervus elaphus (Red Deer), U. tarandus (Reindeer),

[480 Brixham Cave.]

Capreolus capreolus (Goat), Felis leo (var. spelœa, Lion), Hyœna spelœa, Ursus spelœus, Ursus ferox (Grizzly Bear), Ursus arctos (Brown Bear), Canis vulpes (Fox), Lepus timidus (Hare), Lepus cuniculus (Rabbit), Lagomys spelœus (Hare-rat of Siberia), Arvicola amphibius (Water-rat), and Sorex vulgaris (Shrew-mouse).

Of these the small mammalia of living species were found near the surface, and were no doubt of comparatively recent introduction. Of the remainder a few were discovered in the stalagmite, No. 2, but by far the greater number in the cave-earth, No. 5, while a small number also occurred in the shingle, No. 6. As in some other cases, previously mentioned, the cave was sometimes a Hyæna den, for the bones bear the marks of their teeth, and at a period a little later, 'the great number of very young, or even fœtal bones, afford the strongest possible evidence that the Bear actually inhabited the cavern.' With regard to the traces of man, 'not a single human bone has been found in Brixham Cave; but thirty-six rude flint implements and chips, referable to man's workmanship, were met with in different parts of the cave; of these sixteen were found in the shingle, No. 6 . . . In fourteen instances their infraposition to bones of the Mammoth, Rhinoceros, Hyæna, Tiger, (? Lion), Bear, Reindeer, Red Deer, Horse, and Ox, is perfectly well proved, as many as 120 of such bones having been discovered higher in the cave-earth' than the place where these flints were found. Woodcuts of some of the instruments given by Mr. Evans in his report on the implements discovered, leaves no doubt that they were fashioned by man, and all of them are of undoubted early palæolithic type, more or less similar to fig. 112, p. 540.

[Advent of Man. 481]

As far as caves are concerned, this concludes the evidence of the co-existence of savage man with a mammalian fauna, some of the species of which are extinct; but excepting the Victoria Cave, none of the others yield any direct evidence as to whether man lived in these regions before or, at least, during part of the Glacial epoch (see p. 466). Something else, however, remains to be said on this part of the subject when I come to treat of river-gravels and alluvia.¹

The antiquity of man being thus clearly established, it becomes obvious that his advent into our area was either of pre-Glacial or of inter-Glacial date. I say inter-Glacial, because Mr. Skertchly has lately discovered palæolithic flint implements in certain brick-earths. Similar, and I believe identical brick-earths underlie the 'Chalky boulder-clay' in the neighbourhood, the boulder-clay having been removed by denudation from that portion of the brick-earth in which the implements were found at Botany Bay near Thetford in Suffolk. The announcement at once provoked strenuous opposition, and therefore on a tour of inspection of Mr.

¹ A list of cave mammalia is given by Professor Boyd Dawkins in a memoir in the Journ. Geol. Society, 1869, vol. xxv. p. 194. His entire list contains 46 or 47 species, as follows; Man, Rhino1ophus ferum-equinum, Sorex vulgaris, Ursus arctos, U. spelæus, U. ferox, Gulo luscus, (the Glutton), Meles taxus, Mustela erminea, M. putorius, M. martes, Lutra vulgaris, Canis vulpes, C. lupus, Hyæna spelæa, Felis catus, F. pardus, F. leo, F. lynx, Machairodus latidens, Cervus megaceros, Alces malchis, Cervus Browni, C. tarandus, C. capreolus, C. elaphus, Bos primigenius, Bison priscus, Hippopotamus major, Sus scrofa, Equus caballus, Rhinoceros leptorhinus, R. tichorhinus, Elephas antiquus, E. primigenius, Lemmus, Lepus curriculus, L. timidus, Lagomys spelæus, Spermophilus erythrogenoides, S.—(?), Arvicola pratensis, A. agrestis, A amphibius, Castor fiber, Mus musculus. Mr. Pengelley has written many important papers on Bone-Caves and their connection with pre-historic man.

[482 Migration of Animals.]

Skertchly's work with Mr. Bristow, we took care to examine into this point. The result was that I satisfied myself of the truth of Mr. Skertchly's observations that the implement-bearing brick-earth in places underlies a boulder-clay, which in his opinion is not of the earliest date, in which case the men who made these tools must have been of inter-Glacial age. If so, why may these men not have been the descendants of men who inhabited the country in pre-Glacial times, and who, when the cold increased, and sheets of glacier-ice advanced far south, retreated into the Devonshire area, as I have hinted in page 470. Perhaps we cannot prove it, but there is nothing improbable in the hypothesis, and I am not the only one who believes it. One thing is certain, that when rude man, along with other mammalia, some of them extinct, first migrated into the British area, he must have done so over land, and no one doubts that in all tertiary and post-tertiary time Britain has been again and again united to the Continent, both before and after the Glacial epoch. For example:

After the elevation of the country that succeeded its partial depression under the sea during part of the Glacial period, the probabilities are more than strong, that England was united to the Continent, not by a mass of solid rock above the sea level, but by a plain formed by the elevation of the Boulder-beds over part at least of the area now occupied by the German Ocean. Across this plain many animals migrated into our area, some of the species probably for the second time. It is the belief of many geologists, that at the same period Ireland was united to England and Scotland by a similar plain across the area now covered by the Irish Sea, and over this, into Ireland, the Cervus megaceros, formerly called the Irish Elk, the Mammoth, and other

[Migration of Animals. 483]

animals migrated into that region. The proof is equally clear that Ireland during part of the Glacial period, like England, was partly submerged, so as to form a group of islands; and, therefore, to allow of the country being re-inhabited by large mammals, there must have been ground over which these mammals travelled into the Irish area after the re-elevation of the country.

An excellent surmise was offered us on this subject by Professor Edward Forbes, who drew attention to some remarkable observations made by Mr. Thompson of Belfast with regard to the comparative number of reptiles that are found in Belgium, in England, and in Ireland. In Belgium there are in all 22 species of serpents, frogs, toads, lizards, and the like. In England the number of species is only 11, and in Ireland 5; and the inference that Professor Forbes drew was, that these reptiles migrated from east to west, across the old land that joined our island to the Continent, before the denudations took place that disunited them. Before the breaking up of that land, a certain number had got as far as England, and a smaller number as far as Ireland, and the continuity of the land being broken up, their further progress was stopped.

These denudations, of course, did not cease with the breaking up of the land that joined our territory to the Continent; and, in raised beaches and submerged forests, there are proofs of several oscillations of the relative levels of sea and land since that period. This waste of territory is, indeed, going on still, and will always go on while a fragment of Britain remains. Before proceeding further I would advance one or two proofs to show how steady the waste of our country is.

Along the east coast of England, between

[484 Coast-cliff Denudations.]

Flamborough Head and Kilnsea, the strata are composed of drift or boulder-clay, sometimes of more than a hundred feet in known thickness, and forming well-marked sea cliffs. This district is called Holderness, and many towns, long ago built upon the coast, have been forced by degrees to migrate landwards because of the encroachment of the sea. 'The materials,' says Professor Phillips, 'which fall from the wasting cliff' (a length of 36 miles) 'are sorted by the tide, the whole shore is in motion, every cliff is hastening to its fall, the parishes are contracted, the churches wasted away.' The whole area on which Ravenspur stood, once an important town in Yorkshire, where Bolingbroke, afterwards Henry IV., landed in 1399, is now fairly out at sea. The same may be said of many another town and farmstead, and the sea is ever muddy with the wasting of the unsolid land. In like manner, all the soft coast cliffs, from the Humber to the mouth of the Thames, are suffering similar destruction in places at an average rate of from two to four yards a year. The line of coast from Hunstanton to Cromer and Mausley, and much further south, is wasting away at a rate estimated by Mr. Reid of the Geological Survey, at probably not less than an average of about two yards a year east and west of Cromer. The strata consist of boulder-clay, laminated clays, fresh-water and marine, and soft sands and gravels. The cliffs are often lofty, and vast landslips are of frequent occurrence down to the shore, where the restless waves rapidly dispose of the material. High up on the edges of the cliff we see the relics of old brick-built walls, that once belonged to vanished farmhouses, and strongly-built tunnels, now in ruins, that descended to the sea, and were once used by fishermen, gape high on the cliffs, themselves a greater ruin. One

[Coast-cliff Denudations. 485]

notable example is found at Eccles-by-the-sea in Norfolk. The town at a comparatively late period extended beyond the church tower, which is partly buried in blown sea-sand, and the church itself has been destroyed.

On the south side of the estuary of the Thames stands the ruined church of the Reculvers, on a low hill of Thanet Sand, half surrounded on the land side by the relics of a Roman wall, that in old times encircled the little town, then probably at least a mile from the sea. The church has been abandoned, but is preserved as a landmark by the Admiralty, and groins have been run out across the beach to prevent the further waste of the cliff by the sea. As it is, all the seaward side of the Roman wall, has long been destroyed, the waves have invaded the land, and half the churchyard is gone, while from the cliff the bones of men protrude, and here and there lie upon the beach. A little nearer Herne Bay, the same marine denudation sparingly strews the beach with yet older remains of man, in the shape of palaolithic flint weapons of a most ancient type, washed from old river gravels that crown part of the cliff.

In the Isle of Sheppy, great slips are of frequent occurrence from the high cliff of London Clay that overlooks the sea. Two acres of wheat and potatoes in this manner slipped seaward in 1863. When I saw them the crops were still standing on the shattered ground below the edge of the cliff.

Again, in the Hampshire basin, on the south coast of England, if we walk along the footpaths that are used by coastguardsmen, we often find that the path on the edge of the cliff comes suddenly to an end, and has been re-made inland. This is due to the fact that

[486 Coast-cliff Denudations.]

the cliffs, chiefly composed of clay and sand, are so soft, that, as in Sheppy and Holderness, every year large masses of country slip out seaward and are rapidly washed away by the waves.

The waste of this southern part of England and of Holderness has been estimated at the rate of from two to three yards every year. In the course of time, therefore, a great area of country must have been destroyed. At Selsey Bill there is a farmhouse standing, twenty years ago about 200 yards from the shore, and since the farmer first settled there, as much laud has been wasted away as that which lay between his house and the sea. The site of the ancient Saxon Cathedral Church that preceded that of Chichester is known to be far out at sea. But this waste is not confined to the softest kinds of strata, for further west, in Devonshire, we find the same kind of destruction going on, one remarkable case of which is the great landslip in the neighbourhood of Axmouth, which took place in the year 1839. The strata there consist on the surface of Chalk, underlaid by Upper Greensand, which is underlaid by the Lias Clay. The Chalk is easily penetrated by water, and so is the sand that underlies it. After heavy rains, the water having sunk through the porous beds, the clay beneath became exceedingly slippery, and thus it happened, that the strata dipping seaward at a low angle, a vast mass of Chalk nearly a mile in length slipped forward, forming a grand ruin, the features of which are still constantly changing by the further foundering of the Chalk and Green sand. The waves beating upon the foundering masses destroy them day by day, and in time they will entirely disappear, and make room for further landslips. If we walk along the southern coast of Dorsetshire and Devon, and criticise

[Coast-cliff Denudations. 487]

it with a geological eye, it is obvious that a great number of similar landslips have taken place in times past, of which we have no special record.

In the north country the same kind of history is plain all along the Liassic and Oolitic cliffs of Yorkshire, on a coast formed of almost the finest cliffs in England. Not very many years ago at Rosedale, on the north horn of Runswick Bay, an important set of iron works, offices and cottages, with a pier and harbour, were by a landslip at night utterly ruined and borne into the sea. The slight seaward dip of the strata, composed of clays and sands, ought to have warned the proprietors of the insecurity of the position of their works, had they possessed sufficient geological knowledge.

In parts of our country in the west, the Silurian rocks, Old Red Sandstone and Coal-measures on the coast, show equal evidence of waste, though much slower in its progress; as for instance at St. Bride's Bay, in Pembrokeshire (see Map), where the north and south headlands are formed in great part of hard igneous rocks that stand boldly out seaward; while between these points there are softer Coal-measure strata, which once filled what is now the bay-and spread far beyond. But because of their comparative softness they have been less able than the igneous rocks of the headlands to stand the wear and tear of the atmosphere and the sea waves, and thus having been worn back a large bay is the result. I know of no place in Britain where the effects of long-continued marine denudation can be better marked than in this part of Pembrokeshire. Let the observer cross to Ramsey Island, opposite St. David's, and ascend one of the rocky hills. Below he will see that a large part of the

[488 Coast-cliff Denudations.]

island forms a portion of an extensive tableland, which is continued far into the mainland of Pembrokeshire, broken only by minor hills formed of hard igneous rocks which have more effectually resisted denudation, while far to the south the islands of Skomer and Skokholm continue the outlines of the upland plain, such as in Chapter XXX. I have called an old plain of marine denudation.

All along the west coast, where solid rocks prevail, the hardest masses usually form promontories, while the bays have been scooped in softer material; and this fact, though the rate of waste may not be detected by the eye in many years, yet proves the nature of marine and atmospheric denudation when combined on coast cliffs. The very existence of sea cliffs proves marine denudation, for the strata that form these cliffs come abruptly to an end in precipitous escarpments. To see this in perfection let any one walk along the coast cliffs formed of Old Red Sandstone near Arbroath in Forfarshire. There the broad inland plain ends abruptly in vertical precipices, that rise from 150 to 250 feet above the waves at their base, and while the tide is retreating to its completest ebb, long reefs and skerries of hard edged strata tell of the progressive cutting back of a great modern plain of marine denudation, similar to that old one which stretches inland from the high edge of the existing cliff.

The Needle-rock near Fishguard, the Needles of the Isle of Wight, and many other rocky 'stacks' form excellent cases in point, standing a little aloof from the high cliffs of rock that form the shore-line; and the Orkney Islands themselves are only fragments of an older land separated by denudation from the mainland of Scotland. While being deposited, Nature never

[Coast-cliff Denudations. 489]

ends strata in a cliff-like form. They were hardened and raised into land. The weather and the waves attacked them, wore them back, and cliffs are the result. I re-mention these matters to show that such denudations on a great scale are going on now, and therefore, when I speak of former unions and separations of our island with and from the mainland by denudation and oscillation of level, the statement is founded on excellent data.