Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/399

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THE OSSIFEROUS CAVERNS OF DEVONSHIRE.
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3rd. A layer of blackish matter, about 12 feet long, and nowhere more than a foot thick, occurred immediately beneath the first bed, and was designated the "second bed."

4th. A red, tenacious, clayey loam, containing a large number of angular and subangular fragments of limestone, varying from very small bits to blocks a ton in weight, made up the "third bed."

Pebbles of trap, quartz, and limestone were somewhat prevalent, whilst nodules of brown hematite of iron and blocks of stalagmite w-ere occasionally met with in it. The usual depth of the bed was from 2 to 4 feet, but this was exceeded by 4 or 5 feet in two localities.

5th. The third bed lay immediately on an accumulation of pebbles of quartz, greenstone, grit, and limestone, mixed with small fragments of shale. The depth of this, known as the "fourth" or "gravel bed," was undetermined; for, excepting a few feet only, the limestone bottom was nowhere reached. There is abundant evidence that this bed, as well as a stalagmitic floor which had covered it, had been partially broken up and dislodged before the introduction of the third bed.

Organic remains were found in the stalagmitic floor and in each of the beds beneath it, with the exception of the second only; but as ninety-five per cent, of the whole series occurred in the third, this was not unfrequently termed the "bone bed." The mammals represented in the stalagmite were Bear, Reindeer, Rhinoceros tichorhinus, Mammoth, and Cave Lion. The first bed yielded Bear and Fox only. In the third bed were found relics of Mammoth, Rhinoceros tichorhinus, Horse, Bos primigenius, B. longifrons, Red Deer, Reindeer, Roebuck, Cave Lion, Cave Hyæna, Cave Bear, Grizzly Bear, Brown Bear, Fox, Hare, Rabbit, Lagomys spelæus, Water Vole, Shrew, Polecat, and Weasel. The only remains met with in the fourth bed were those of Bear, Horse, Ox, and Mammoth. The human industrial remains exhumed in the cavern were flint implements and a hammer-stone, and occurred in the third and fourth beds only. The pieces of flint met with were thirty-six in number. Of these fifteen are held to show evidence of having been artificially worked, in nine the workmanship is rude or doubtful, four have been mislaid, and the remainder are believed not to have been worked at all (see Phil. Trans, vol. 163, 1873, pp. 561, 662). Of the undoubted tools, eleven were found in the third and four in the fourth bed. Two of those yielded by the