at least 100 feet less deep than they are at present." These were the results of a systematic and careful examination of a virgin cave by a committee of scientific men, and they gave a stimulus to research which without abatement has lasted to the present time. The subsequent exploration. of Kent's Cavern, Torquay, has even more imperishably associated the caves of South Devon with the new science.

This science is indeed the growth as of yesterday, though the discoveries on which it rests had been in some measure anticipated. In 1833, the late Dr. Schmerling, of Liège, published the results of his labours in the numerous caverns in the basin of the Meuse, giving full proof of the co-existence of extinct animals with man.

About the same time † Mr. McEnery, "for many years chaplain at Tor Abbey, had found in a cave one mile east of Torquay, in red loam covered with stalagmite, not only bones of the mammoth, tichorhine rhinoceros, cave-bear, and other mammalia, but several remarkable flint tools, some of which he supposed to be of great antiquity and which are now known to be of a distinctly Paleolithic type, while there were also remains of man in the same cave, of later date."

These views of MacEnery, the result of five years' exploration, were withheld from publication, out of deference to Dr. Buckland, who, in his celebrated work entitled Reliquiæ Diluviance, published in 1823, declared that none of the human bones or stone implements met with by him in any of the caverns could be considered to be as old as the mammoth and other extinct quadrupeds.

About ten years afterwards Mr. Godwin Austen declared that he had obtained in the above cavern works of man from undisturbed loam or clay under stalagmite, mingled with the remains of extinct animals, and that all these must have been introduced before the stalagmite flooring had been formed.I

Then followed, in 1858, the Cavern by Dr. Falconer and revolution in public opinion; undisturbed from 1846 to 1864.

exploration of the Brixham others, which produced a but Kent's Cave remained

* In 1824 Cuvier exhibited his usual large-minded caution when asked whether human bones had yet been discovered and proved to be coeval with those of extinct mammalia. "Pas encore" was his simple reply.-Nott and Gliddon, Types of Mankind, p. 341.

† Antiquity of Man, Lyell, 4th ed. pp. 99 to 108. Trans. Devon Assoc.. vol. iii. p. 321.

Paleontological Mems., vol. ii. p. 591.

After these events came Messrs. Lartet and Christy, whose combined labours seem to have established the fact of the coexistence of man with extinct mammalia.

As it is not my purpose to attempt to controvert unquestionable truth propounded as such (as we shall see by-andby) some ages before the present era of enlightenment, I admit fully the reality of this spectre, which has scared so many minds from their propriety; but I do not at all admit the awful character and meaning attached to it. I have come sufficiently near to the apparition to discern that the materials of which it is constructed are of very commonplace character, and that the infernal light shining from those hollow sockets is but, after all, the glimmer of a miner's candle.

In plain words, whilst I give all credit to the great diligence exhibited by Mr. Pengelly, as also to his fellow-explorers, in the careful ascertainment of details, I wholly dissent from his deductions, briefly expressed thus in 1874 :—

"It is of no service to attempt a concealment of the fact that the real contention at present is not whether man has occupied Devonshire during 70,000 or 700,000 years, or any still greater number, but whether the old belief that he first appeared on Earth some 6,000 years ago, is to be retained or abandoned."*

These words are calculated to rouse our attention; and as we do not know how far old beliefs on other points may be endangered, we shake off something of the languid softness inspired by the delightful air of this English Capua, and address ourselves to a combat which we find ultimately involves the truth itself.

The important question then which opens upon us is the lapse of time, of which we are supposed to possess a chronometer in the rate of deposit of stalagmite in Kent's Cavern. The Brixham Cavern having been pervaded by a rush of water and the stalagmite thus broken up, affords, as is admitted, "only a complicated solution of the problem."

To avoid prolixity in the description of Kent's Cavern, I adopt an authentic estimate in 1874.

"Taking the correct data (that of the report of 1869) we have twelve feet of stalagmite formed, let it be assumed from the dates on its upper surface, at the rate of 05 inch in 259

*Notes on Recent Notices of the Geology and Paleontology of Devonshir, Part i. p. 26. By W. Pengelly, F.R.S.

+ Boyd Dawkins' Cave-Hunting, pp. 324 to 334.

‡ Notes, as above, Part i. p. 25.

years, and thereby arrive at the conclusion that the accumulation of the whole required 720,000 years."

This somewhat long date, examined by Mr. Pengelly's own standard, proves not nearly long enough. He has said (p. 24) that 250 years have failed to precipitate an amount of calcareous matter sufficient to obliterate incisions which at first were probably not more than an eighth of an inch in depth.

I have recently seen the cave under the courteous guidance of this gentleman, and was able to observe specially an incision to which he pointed our attention. It might seem to have argued too much intrusive curiosity and too little confidence in our guide for me alone, amongst a large party of ladies and gentlemen, to have attempted too near a view; but my belief is that the inscription is not nearly so deep nor the incrustation so great as above indicated. The example proves too much, and in all probability there has been no appreciable growth in any of the formations. In fact, the source of supply has from some cause failed almost entirely.*

All this matter might easily have been illustrated by sinking a shaft downwards through from thirty to fifty feet of earth and rock, so as to ascertain the composition of the superincumbent mass. This would have been a very easy and comparatively inexpensive operation. Why has it not been attempted? If twelve feet in thickness of stalagmite has been wasted by the rain, out of this thirty to fifty feet, it would be interesting to ascertain the state of the remaining limestone.†

The specimen which has been sent to me probably exhibits this, and shows that whilst the hard rock is entirely impervious to water, the clefts and fissures are, on the contrary, permeable, and the means of supplying the material for the stalagmite in the crystallized carbonate of lime visible in the specimen.

*See Appendix A.

McEnery (p. 75) says, "On a late occasion, the wood which clothed the cliff was partially cleared away; the rock presented bare, bleached, and corroded surfaces. There was no large rent or external chasm observable on its summit. The only visible opening, except the two mouths, is through the cleft, which forms and extends inwardly from the southern mouth."

"The physical impossibility that the enormous mass of loam could have entered exclusively through the present mouths inclines us to think those canals open in the concealed mouths of the former entrances.”—McEnery, p. 113.

"On further examination, I found that the rocky cover of the cavern is perforated with numerous crevices or windows, partly choked with mud and brambles, through which, at so many port-holes, the mud in a state of fluidity may have entered into the common reservoir of the interior."-McEnery, p. 281,

As these clefts were washed clean, this supply would naturally fail.*

This limestone is mineralogically identified with the rock at Oreston, which furnished the materials for the Plymouth breakwater.

Mr. Pengelly asserts that he "has always abstained from, and cautioned others against insisting that the thickness of the stalagmite is a perfectly trustworthy chronometer; nevertheless, it seems fair to ask those who deny that it is of any value, to state the basis of their denial."

This challenge I shall accept; but in the mean time must ask the reader to note that Mr. Pengelly passes on immediately to say that "such estimates, if sufficiently multiplied, are of great

value."

Now it may be conceded that, under some circumstances, the growth of stalagmite may be shown to be so far continuous as presumably to indicate a certain lapse of time. The observations of Mr. Boyd Dawkins,† on the rate at which stalagmite is being accumulated in the Ingleborough Cave, are admitted to be of this character. "The author states, on what appears to be most satisfactory evidence, that the apex of a boss of stalagmite known as the Jockey's Cap, in that cave, rising from the crystalline pavement to a height of 2.50 feet, was found, by careful measurement, on March 13th, 1873, to be 87 inches from the roof; whilst when measured by James Farrar, on October 30th, 1845, it was 95.25 inches from it; so that the upward growth has been 8.25 inches in 27.37 years; giving an average vertical growth of 3 inch per year." "On the strength of this fact," the author remarks that, "all the stalagmites and stalactites in the Ingleborough Cave may not date further back than the time of Edward III., if the 'Jockey's Cap' be taken as a measure of the rate of deposition. "It is evident," he continues, "from this instance of rapid accumulation, that the value of a layer of stalagmite, in fixing the high antiquity of deposit below it, is comparatively little. The layers, for instance, in Kent's Hole, which are generally believed to have demanded a considerable lapse of time, may possibly have been formed at the rate of a quarter of an inch per annum!" At this rate "twenty feet of stalagmite might be formed in 1,000 years" (p. 41).

وو

We have in the above carefully-recorded experiment an approach to the accuracy of a chronometer in a calculation derived from the increment of real stalagmite; but it will be

*McEnery, p. 259.

† Cave-Hunting, W. Boyd Dawkins, F.R.S., pp. 39, 40, and Appendix II.

seen by the specimens which I have had cut and polished (chosen out of a mass of broken-up stalagmite carried by the miners out of Kent's Cavern), that the increase marked by annular rings is by no means uniform. And yet uniformity of action, and the absence of all change in external surroundings, are indispensable to the value of a chronometer. So that we can only say of our estimate of years, valeat quantum! Let it pass for what it is worth, and no more!

When circumstances are favourable, as they must have been at some period or periods, in Kent's Cavern, this deposit accumulates with great rapidity; thus M. Reclus, in his work entitled "The Earth,"* relates that in the cave of Melidhoni the skeletons of three hundred Cretans smoked to death by the Turks in 1822, are gradually disappearing under the incrustation of stone, which has enveloped them with its cretaceous layers.

If we could accumulate a sufficient number of such observations, they might, by correcting each other's errors, lead to some useful results. But it is obvious that we have not any hope of thus bridging over the chasm between a reliable calculation of 0.3 inch increment per year, and an utterly unreliable estimate of 0.5 inch in two hundred and fifty years.

I have accepted Mr. Pengelly's challenge to show on what grounds I rest my opinion that his calculations are absolutely unreliable.

In the first place, then, it is to be noted that there is nowhere to be found in all the cavern two layers superimposed, twelve feet in thickness, of homogeneous and uniform stalagmite. The chronometer is absent.

The first and uppermost stratum met with was a band of black mould, over which no stalagmite had formed, the source of supply having apparently been exhausted.† The clock had stopped for an interval estimated by Mr. Pengelly at 2,000 years. Beneath this we meet with what is called "the modern stalagmite floor" of very variable thickness, concerning which I have this much to say, that if we are to judge by what is left, it could not properly be called stalagmite at all. It differs wholly in appearance from the true stalagmite, as I noticed in one place where the latter had formed upon the surface of the

* Epoch of the Mammoth, p. 91.

+ The cave had served as a place of interment, as evidenced by the remains of a human skeleton, in the ordinary position of burial; also by cinerary urns (see McEnery, Lit. of Kent's Cavern, p. 34). This early explorer found human bones entombed in a pit excavated in the surface of the stalagmite (p. 145).