The history of this cave is very interesting. About sixty years ago Mr. M'Enery, a Roman Catholic priest, explored this famous cavern, and found therein bones of extinct animals, and with them flint and bone tools, evidently the work of man, and which he believed to be cotemporaneous. Nevertheless, in deference to Dr. Buckland, who two years previously had explored the Kirkdale Caves, and declared his conviction that none of the human relics found were as old as the mammoth and other extinct quadrupeds, he quietly yielded his own opinion, and allowed the matter to drop; but subsequent researches, conducted in a manner which seems to render mistakes or fraud impossible, have emphatically confirmed the opinion of the first explorer. Since the history of Kent's Cavern is almost identical with that of all the osseous caves of England, we will give a concise summary of its contents, according to the report of its able and energetic explorer, Mr. Pengelly.

There are two entrances, and the first thing to be noticed in the interior is a number of irregular blocks of limestone, which have evidently fallen from the roof, and now rest upon a black mould, from three to twelve inches thick, containing remains which are all traceable to the period of the Romans, or a little earlier that is, representing an antiquity of about 2000 years, the animal remains also belonging exclusively to the historic period. This black mould cleared away, we find a flooring of granular stalagmite, varying in thickness from less than an inch to five feet. Beneath this stalagmite lies a black band, about four inches thick, consisting almost entirely of pieces of charred wood, and extending only for about 100 square feet near the entrance of the cavern, and supposed to represent the place in which the ancient cave-dwellers kindled their fires. Below this, again, and filling the cavern to the depth of several feet, is cave-earth of a light-red colour, in which, as also in the black band and the overlying stalagmite, have been found embedded, not only the bones of many extinct animals, the hyæna predominating, but also traces of man, in tools of bone and stone, rudely manufactured,

yet still undeniably the work of man-amongst others, a bone needle, with the eye carefully drilled, and a harpoon like those of the French caves.

Here the researches of Mr. M'Enery and of Dr. Buckland terminated, the former convinced by the remains discovered of the great antiquity of man in Britain, the latter seeking to explain, by diluvial and other catastrophes, the presence of the remains of man with those of extinct mammals, but utterly denying that they could have been cotemporaneous, asserting that the stone and bone implements must have been accidentally introduced into the cavern at a later date.

It must be noted that pottery, metal-work, spindlewhorls, and other indications of civilization, cease entirely with the granular stalagmite; that beneath it the implements found are of bone and stone only, and much ruder in form than those of the upper stratum. This was for a long time supposed to be the first chapter of the history of man; but in clearing out the cave, another stalagmitic floor presented itself, crystalline in structure, and of a thickness in some parts of almost twelve feet. This floor had been broken up in places by some unknown natural agency, before the introduction of the cave-earth, and beneath it lay a breccia of many feet in thickness; and in this breccia, as well as in the crystalline stalagmite, were found in abundance the bones of the cave bear, and almost of that only, although a few bones of one or two other species have been discovered. But in the midst of this breccia, buried, for who shall say how many thousands of years, beneath a flooring of stalagmite which had accumulated to the thickness of twelve feet, at the rate of less than the twentieth part of an inch in a century, have been found flint tools, much rougher, larger, and more archaic in type than those of the upper strata, yet showing most evident traces of man's handiwork. Such is the history of

Kent's Cavern, as at present revealed to us by the indefatigable labour of Mr. Pengelly, and perhaps it will be well to let him speak in his own words with regard to the antiquity of these deposits.

"That the deposits, with the constructive and destructive processes described, were not only distinct and successive, but also very protracted terms in the Cavern chronology, is strikingly seen in considering the changes they indicate. 1st, During the period of the breccia (i. e. the lowest deposit yet known) there was a machinery capable of transporting from Lincombe or Warberry Hill, or both, or from some greater distance, fragments of dark-red grit, varying in size from pieces four inches in diameter to mere sand, and lodging them in the cavern. This so completely passed away, that nothing whatever was carried in, but the deposit already there was covered with a thick sheet of stalagmite, obtained through the solution, by acidulated water, of portions of the limestone in the heart of which the cavern lay. This stage having also ended, the stalagmite was broken up by some natural agency, the exact character of which it is difficult to ascertain, but which achieved its work, not by one effort, but by many in succession, and much of at least the breccia it covered was dislodged and carried out of the cavern. This re-excavating period having in like manner come to a close, a second deposit was introduced; but instead of consisting of dark red sand and stone, as in the former instance, it was made up of a light red clay, and in it were embedded small fragments of limestone, which, from their angularity, could not have been rolled, but were in all probability supplied by the waste of the walls and roof of the cavern itself. 2d, The paleontology of the two deposits is perhaps even more significant of physical changes and the consequent absorption of time. When the cavernhaunting habits of the hyæna are remembered, it will be seen that his entire absence from the fauna of the breccia, and his remarkable preponderance in that of the cave-earth, renders it eminently probable that he was not an occupant of Britain during the earlier period. To accept this, however-and there seems to be no escape from it-is to accept the opinion that between. the eras of the breccia and of the cave-earth it had become possible for the hyæna to reach this country,

since he was actually here, and in great force. In other words, the men of the breccia, the ursine period of the cavern, saw this country an island as we see it-unless, indeed, their era was prior to this insularity-when it was also occupied by bears and lions, but not by hyænas; whilst in the time of their descendants or successors, the whole of Western Europe had been so elevated that the channel which previously and subsequently separated it from the Continent was dry, and Britain was in a continental condition."1

It will thus be seen, that in accordance with the indications afforded by the contents of Kent's Cavern, Mr. Pengelly is disposed to assign to man in Britain a higher antiquity than that claimed for him by Sir Charles Lyell, who wrote before the discovery of the implements in the breccia, and to place him between the two glacial epochs, at a period when this island formed an integral part of the European continent. It is indeed evident that the huge mammals found in the caves, in the rivergravels, and in submerged forests, could never have got here had our land always been an island as at present, neither could primitive man, who, judging from the rudeness of his implements, could have had no knowledge of navigation at that early period.

Now, geologists trace two continental periods, in the first of which bears and lions reached our shores with man in a state of utter barbarism, and this period corresponds with the breccia of Kent's Cavern, and the remains in the submerged forest of Cromer on the Norfolk coast, which is also supposed to represent a Pre-Glacial era. Then came a time of submergence, during which the crystalline stalagmite slowly formed, and the fauna received no new additions, whilst perhaps some types died out; then came a second upheaval, and the hyæna appeared and feasted on the bones of the mammoth, elk, bison, &c., whilst the works of man are characterized by an advance in art. His stone

1 See Report of Transactions of Plymouth Institution, 1875, on "Flint Implements found in Kent's Cavern," by W. Pengelly, F.G.S.

tools are still rude and unpolished, but smaller and better formed than those of the breccia, and are supplemented by those of bone, whilst the needles found suggest the use of clothing, and a perforated tooth of badger shows that he had already begun to study the art of adorning the person. This grade of progress corresponds singularly with that found in the French caves, although as yet no works of art similar to the drawings found in the caves belonging to the reindeer period at Dordogne have been found in Britain, but as the fauna of the two countries are almost identical, as the subjoined tables will show, it is reasonable to suppose that a similar race existed in both.

1 The discovery in Kent's Hole of several teeth of an extinct carnivorous animal (Machairodus latidens), the great sabre-toothed tiger, which belongs to an earlier fauna than the other extinct mammals found in the cavern, and which has not been found elsewhere in Britain, is of especial interest.

2 The enormous herds of wild horses which existed in Europe,