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CAVE HUNTING.

Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Fig. 3.

Fig. 4. Fig. 5. Fig. 6.

Fig. 7. Fig. 8.

C. F. Kell Lath. London F.C.

ENAMELS FROM THE VICTORIA CAVE. [p98.]

London; Macmillan & C^o. 1874.

CAVE HUNTING,

RESEARCHES ON
THE EVIDENCE OF CAVES
RESPECTING THE
EARLY INHABITANTS OF EUROPE

BY
W. BOYD DAWKINS, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S., F.S.A.,
Curator of the Museum and Lecturer in Geology in The Owens College, Manchester.

ILLUSTRATED BY COLOURED PLATE AND WOODCUTS.

London:
MACMILLAN AND CO.
1874.

[The Right of Translation and Reproduction is reserved.]

LONDON:
R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS,
BREAD STREET HILL.

TO
THE BARONESS BURDETT COUTTS,
THE FOUNDER OF THE SCHOLARSHIPS
FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF GEOLOGICAL SCIENCE
IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,
This Work is Dedicated,
AS A SLIGHT ACKNOWLEDGMENT FROM HER FIRST SCHOLAR.

PREFACE.

The exploration of caves is rapidly becoming an important field of inquiry, and their contributions to our knowledge of the early history of the sojourn of men in Europe are daily increasing in value and in number. Since the year 1823, when Dr. Buckland published his famous work, the “Reliquiæ Diluvianæ,” no attempt has been made to correlate, and bring into the compass of one work, the crude mass of facts which have been recorded in nearly every country in Europe. In this volume I have attempted to bring the history of cave-exploration down to the knowledge of to-day, and to put its main conclusions before my readers in one connected and continuous narrative. Since Dr. Buckland wrote, the momentous discovery of human relics along with the extinct animals in caves and river deposits has revolutionised the current ideas as to the antiquity and condition of man; and works of art of a high order, showing a familiarity with nature and an aptitude for the delineation of the forms of animals by no means despicable, have been discovered in the caves of Britain, France, Belgium, and Switzerland, that were the dwellings of the primeval European hunters of reindeer and mammoths. The discoveries in Kent’s Hole and in the caves of Belgium led to those in the caves of Brixham and Wookey Hole, and finally to those of Auvergne and the south of France, as well as of Germany and Switzerland.

Archæology, also, by the use of strictly inductive methods, has grown from a mere antiquarian speculation into a science; and its students have proved the truth of the three divisions of human progress familiar to the Greek and Roman philosopher, and expressed in the pages of Hesiod and Lucretius—the Ages of Stone, Bronze and Iron. The subdivision of the first of these into the older, or palæolithic, and newer, or neolithic, by Sir John Lubbock, is the only refinement which has been made in this classification. Sir Charles Lyell has discussed the various problems offered by the general consideration of the first of these divisions in “The Antiquity of Man;” while Sir John Lubbock, in “Prehistoric Man,” has followed Dr. Keller and others in working out the past history of mankind by a comparison of the habitations, tombs, implements and weapons found in Europe, with those of modern savages. This work is intended to be to a considerable extent supplementary to theirs,—to treat of the formation of caves, and of the light thrown by their contents on the sojourn of man in Europe, on the wild animals, and on the changes in climate and geography.

In treating of the caves of the historic period, I have given considerable prominence to the exploration of the Victoria Cave, near Settle, which has led to the discovery that many caverns were inhabited in this country during the fifth and sixth centuries, and that they contain works of art of a high order. In the difficult task of bringing them into relation with British history and art, I have to acknowledge the kind assistance of Mr. E. A. Freeman, the Rev. J. R. Green, and Mr. A. W. Franks.

In the neolithic division of the prehistoric period, I have published at length my recent discoveries in the sepulchral caves of Denbighshire, and am allowed by my friend, Professor Busk, to reprint his description of the human bones. To his suggestive essay on the Gibraltar caves, as well as to the works of the late Dr. Thurnam, and of Professors Broca and Huxley, I am indebted for the clue to the identification of the neolithic dwellers in caves with the ancient Iberians or Modern Basques. That portion of the evidence which relates to France I have verified by a personal examination of the human remains from caves and tombs in the Museums of Bordeaux, Toulouse, Lyons and Paris.

The results of the exploration of the Hyæna-den of Wookey Hole have been given in greater detail in the portion of the work devoted to the palæolithic age than they would have been, had they been before fully recorded. And in this division of the subject I have largely made use of the “Reliquiæ Aquitanicæ,” which embodies the discoveries in Auvergne of my late friends Professor E. Lartet and Mr. Christy. To the editors of that work I am indebted for permission to use some of the plates and letterpress.

The history of the pleistocene mammalia, in which palæolithic man forms the central figure, has been my especial study for many years. And the evidence which is offered by the animals as to the geography and climate of Europe, which I have published from time to time in the works of the Palæontographical Society, the Geological Journal, and in the Popular Science, British Quarterly, and Edinburgh Reviews, is collected together in this work, and brought into relation with the inquiry into the extension of ice over Europe in the glacial period, and into the soundings of the European seas. In approaching these and the like problems, I have done my best to arrive at the truth by visiting as far as possible the foreign localities and collections, and by correspondence with the discoverers of new facts.

In addition to those names which I have already mentioned, I have to express my thanks to the Councils of the Society of Antiquaries, the Geological Society, and of the Anthropological Institute and to Mr. John Evans, for the use of woodcuts; to Mr. Rooke Pennington for looking over some of the proof sheets; and to Professors Gaudry, Rütimeyer, Lortet, Nilsson, and Steenstrüp, and the Rev. Canon Greenwell for aid of various kinds. But especially do I feel grateful to my old friend and master, the late lamented Professor Phillips, for frequent help and prudent counsel.

In laying this book before my readers I would merely further remark, that it is a faint outline of a new and vast field of research, in which I have attempted to give prominence to the more important points, rather than a finished and detailed history of cave-exploration.

W. B. D.

The Owens College, Manchester,
20th July, 1874.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

LISTS OF SPECIES AND TABLES OF MEASUREMENTS.

ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS.

Page [1], line 7, for “Cythæron” read “Cithæron.”

Page [8], line 4, for “that” read “who.”

Page [17], line 5, for “Seine” read “Somme.”

Page [60], lines 29, 30, for “non-ossiferous” read “no ossiferous.”

Page [82], [fig. 19], for “A, B, Albert, C, Victoria” read “A, B, Victoria, C, Albert.”

Page [95], [fig. 25].—This design is to be seen in the chalice discovered in 1868, in a rath at Ardagh, Limerick, and described by the Earl of Dunraven (Trans. Royal Irish Acad. xxiv. Antiquities). The chalice is made of gold, silver, bronze, brass, copper, and lead, and from the identity of its inscription and ornament with those of Irish MSS. of ascertained age, may be referred to a date ranging from the 5th to the 9th centuries. It is also adorned with squares of blue and red enamel of the same kind as that of the brooches from the Victoria Cave, figured in the coloured plate. The same design is also presented by the “bronze head-ring” found in 1747 at Stitchel, in Roxburgh, (Wilson “Prehistoric Annals of Scotland,” ii. 146) as well as by one of the silver articles known as “The Norrie Law Relics,” found in a tumulus on the shore of the Bay of Largo, Firth of Forth. Of the coins found at the same place, the latest, belonging to Tiberius Constantine (d. 682), fixes the date as not earlier than the 7th century. Some of the sculptured stones of Scotland, such as the Dunnichen stone, are ornamented also in the same style, and, according to Professor Wilson, belong to “the transition period from the 4th to the 8th centuries, when pagan and Christian rites were obscurely mingled,” (ii. 259). In Scotland, therefore, as well as Ireland, this style of ornamentation is of the same age, corresponding in the main with that of Brit-Welsh articles in the Victoria Cave, proved by the associated coins to be later than the 4th century.

Page [120], line 4.—These teeth are considered by Dr. Leith Adams to belong to Elephas antiquus, which has been discovered in other places in Yorkshire. They may possibly belong to that animal; but they may, with equal justice, be identified with the wide-plated variety of the teeth of the Mammoth. The great variation in the width of the component plates of the fossil teeth of Mammoth observable in the large series from Crayford and the caves of the Mendip Hills, and in those in the magnificent Museum of Lyons, causes me to hesitate in considering them to belong to the rarer species.

Page [130], line 2.—This has been verified while these sheets were passing through the press by the discovery of Brit-Welsh articles in a cave in Kirkcudbrightshire by Messrs. A. R. Hunt and A. J. Corrie, among which are bone fasteners similar in outline to that from the Victoria Cave ([Fig. 23]).

Page [190].—In using this classification of crania, I have purposely attached higher value to the two extremes of skull form, or the long and the broad, than to the intermediate oval forms, which cannot be viewed as distinctive of race, because they may be the results either of the intermarriage of a long-headed with a short-headed people, or of variation from the type of one or other of them.

Page [196], heading, for “Dolicho-cepha” read “Dolicho-cephali.”

Page [201], heading, dele “A”.

Page [213], note 2.—The “tête annulaire,” or annular depression, is also visible on some of the broad as well as the long skulls from a “Merovingian” cemetery at Chelles in the same collection. The association in this cemetery of the two skull-forms is probably due to the Merovingians being the masters, and the Celts the servants, and the conquerors and the vanquished being buried in the same spot.

Page [220], line 24, for “Volscæ” read “Volcæ.”

Page [223], line 25, for “east” read “west.”

Page [228], line 3, dele “that.”

Page [229], line 3, for “set foot” read “settled.” The statement in the text is too strong. The conquest of Gaul by the Huns under Attila was averted by his defeat in the famous battle of Chalons.

Page [275], line 21, for “are” read “is.”

Page [279].—Since this was written a new ossiferous deposit has been found in a fissure at Lothorsdale, near Skipton, from which the remains of the Elephas antiquus and Hippopotamus amphibius have been obtained.

Page [284].—The ossiferous fissure at Windy Knoll, near Castleton, recently explored by Messrs. Tym, Pennington, Plant, Walker and others, has added several animals to the pleistocene fauna of that district—the bison, roe, reindeer, bear, wolf, fox, and hyæna, the first of these species being remarkably abundant, and of all ages. The remains were probably introduced by a stream from a higher level.

Page [337], note 2, line 2, for “the Revue” and “les Matériaux” read “in the Revue” and “in the Matériaux.”

Page [337], note 5, for “Aquitainicæ” read “Aquitanicæ.”

Page [347], line 6, for “mind” read “minds.”

Page [356], line 15, for “Port” read “Fort.”

Page [361].—Mr. Ayshford Sanford adds the Felis Caffer to the list from Bleadon, and the Gulo borealis to that of the animals from Kent’s Hole.

Page [386], line 10, dele inverted commas.

Page [386], line 17, for “or from 1,000 to 2,000 feet lower than the glacial covering” read “thus differing by a line of from 1,000 to 2,000 feet from the glacial covering” (Palgrave).

CAVE-HUNTING.

CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.

Legends and Superstitions connected with Caves.—The Physical Division of the Subject.—The Biological.—The Inhabitants of Caves.—Men and Animals.—Ethnological, Archæological, and Geographical Bearings.—The three Classes of Bone-Caves: Historic, Prehistoric, Pleistocene.—History of Cave Exploration in Europe: Germany, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Southern Europe.

Caves have excited the awe and wonder of mankind in all ages, and have figured largely in many legends and superstitions. In the Roman Mythology, they were the abode of the Sibyls, and of the nymphs, and in Greece they were the places where Pan, Bacchus, Pluto, and the Moon were worshipped, and where the oracles were delivered, as at Delphi, Corinth, and Mount Cithæron; in Persia they were connected with the obscure worship of Mithras. Their names, in many cases, are survivals of the superstitious ideas of antiquity. In France and Germany they are frequently termed “Fairy, Dragons’, or Devils’ Caves,” and, according to M. Desnoyers, they are mentioned in the invocation of certain canonized anchorites, who dwelt in them after having dispossessed and destroyed the dragons and serpents, the pagan superstition appearing in a Christian dress.

In the Middle Ages they were looked upon as the dwellings of evil spirits, into the unfathomable abysses of which the intruder was lured to his own destruction. Long after the fairies and little men had forsaken the forests and glens of Northern Germany, they dwelt in their palaces deep in the hearts of the mountains,—in “the dwarf holes,” as they were called—whence they came, from time to time, into the upper air. Near Elbingrode, for example, in the Hartz, the legend was current in the middle of the last century, that when a wedding-dinner was being prepared the near relations of the bride and bridegroom went to the caves, and asked the dwarfs for copper and brass kettles, pewter dishes and plates, and other kitchen utensils.[1] “Then they retired a little, and when they came back, found everything they desired set ready for them at the mouth of the cave. When the wedding was over they returned what they had borrowed, and in token of gratitude, offered some meat to their benefactors.” Allusions, such as this, to dwarfs, according to Professor Nilsson, point back to the remote time when a small primeval race, inhabiting Northern Germany, was driven by invaders to take refuge in caverns,—a view that derives support from the fact that in Scandinavia the tall Northmen were accustomed to consider the smaller Lapps and Finns as dwarfs, and to invest them with magic power, just as in Palestine the smaller invading peoples considered their tall enemies giants. The cave of Bauman’s hole, also in the Hartz district, was said, in the middle of the last century, to have been haunted by divers apparitions, and to contain a treasure guarded by black mastiffs; and in Burrington Combe, in Somersetshire, some twenty years ago, a cave was dug out by a working man, under the impression that it contained gold. The hills of Granada are still believed, by the Moorish children, to contain the great Boabdil and his sleeping host, who will awake when an adventurous mortal invades their repose, and will issue forth to restore the glory of the Moorish kings.

It is, indeed, no wonder that legends and poetical fancies such as these should cluster round caves, for the gloom of their recesses, and the shrill drip of the water from the roof, or the roar of the subterranean water-falls echoing through the passages, and the white bosses of stalagmite looming like statues through the darkness, offer ample materials for the use of a vivid imagination. The fact that often their length was unknown, naturally led to the inference that they were passages into another world. And this is equally true of the story of Boabdil, of that of the Purgatory of St. Patrick, in the north of Ireland, and of the course of the river Styx, which sinks into the rocks and flows through a series of caverns that are the dark entrance-halls of Hades. The same idea is evident in the remarkable story, related by Ælian (Lib. xvi. 16). “Among the Indians of Areia there is an abyss sacred to Pluto, and beneath it vast galleries, and hidden passages and depths, that have never been fathomed. How these are formed the Indians tell not, nor shall I attempt to relate. The Indians drive thither (every year) more than 3,000 different animals—sheep, goats, oxen, and horses—and each acting either from dread of the dreadful abyss, or to avert an evil omen in proportion to his means, seeks his own and his family’s safety by causing the animals to tumble in; and these, neither bound with chains nor driven, of their own accord finish their journey as if led on by some charm; and after they have come to the mouth of the abyss they willingly leap down, and are never more seen by mortal eyes. The lowing, however, of the cattle, the bleating of the sheep and of the goats, and the whinnying of the horses are heard above ground, and if anyone listen at the mouth, he will hear sounds of this kind lasting for a long time. Nor do they ever cease, because beasts are driven thither every day. But whether the sound is made by those recently driven in, or by some of those driven in some time before, I do not express an opinion.” The Roman Catholic Church took advantage of this feeling of superstitious awe, as late as the Middle Ages. At the time of the Reformation it was believed that a cave at Bishofferode would prove the death of some person in the course of the year, unless a public yearly atonement were made. Accordingly a priest came, on a certain day, to the chapel on the hill opposite, whence he passed in solemn procession to the cave, “and let down into it a crucifix, which he pulled up again, and took this occasion to remind them of hell, and to avoid the punishment due to their sins.”

The beauty of the interiors of some of the caves could not fail to give rise to more graceful fancies than these. The fantastic shapes of the dripstone, with which they are adorned, now resembling Gothic pillars supporting a crystalline arcade, or jutting out in little spires and minarets, and very generally covering the floor with a marble-like pavement, and in some cases lining the pools of water with a fretwork of crystals that shine like the facets of a diamond, were fitting ornaments for the houses of unearthly beings, such as fairies.

The Physical Division of the Subject.

It is by no means my intention in this work to give a history of legends such as these, but to take my readers with me into some of the more important and more beautiful caves in this country. The exploration of the chambers and passages of which they are composed, the fording of the subterranean streams by which they are frequently traversed, or the descent into deep chasms which open in their floors, have the peculiar charm of mountaineering, not without a certain pleasurable amount of risk. But to physicist and geologist they offer far more than this. They give an insight into the wonderful chemistry by which changes are being wrought, at the present time, in the solid rock. Nor are the conclusions to which we are led by the investigation of these chemical changes merely confined to the interior of caves. They enable us to understand how some of the most beautiful scenery in Europe has been formed, and to realize the mode by which all precipices and gorges have been carved out of the calcareous rock. In the next chapter we shall see why it is that the combination of hill and valley, ravine and precipice, present the same general features in all limestone districts—why, for instance, the ravines of Palestine are the same as those of Greece, and both are identical with those in Yorkshire. The origin and the history of caves will be examined, as well as their relation to the general physical geography of the calcareous strata. All these subjects are comprehended in the first or the physical division of cave-hunting.

The Biological Division.

We must now proceed to the definition of the scope and object of the second, or Biological, division of the subject.

Caves have been used by man, and the domestic animals living under his protection, from the earliest times recorded by history down to the present day. Those penetrating the rugged precipices of Palestine, we read in the Old Testament, served both for habitation and for burial, and, from the notices which are scattered through the early Greek writers, we may conclude that those of Greece were used for dwelling-places. The story of the Cyclops proves that they were also used as folds for goats. The name of Troglodytes, given to many peoples of the most remote antiquity, implies that there was a time in the history of mankind when Pliny’s statement “specus erat pro domibus” was strictly true (“Hist. Nat.” I. v. c. 56). The caves of Africa have been places of retreat from the remotest antiquity down to the French conquest of Algeria, and in 1845 several hundred Arabs were suffocated in those of Dahra by the smoke of a fire kindled at the entrance by Marshal (then Colonel) Pelissier. Dr. Livingstone alludes in his recent letters to the vast caves of Central Africa, which offer refuge to whole tribes with their cattle and household stuff. In France, according to M. Desnoyers, there are at the present time whole villages, including the church, to be found in the rock, which are merely caves modified, extended, and altered by the hand of man. The caves of the Dordogne were inhabited in the middle ages. Floras writes that the Aquitani, “callidum genus in speluncas se recipiebant, Cæsar jussit includi,”[2] and the same caves afforded shelter to the inhabitants of the same region in the wars of King Pepin against the last Duke of Aquitaine. In this country a small cave in Cheddar Pass was occupied till within the last few years. The caves in the northern counties are stated by Gildas to have offered a refuge to the Brit-Welsh inhabitants of Britain during the raids of the Picts and Scots; and in the year 1745 those of Yorkshire were turned to the same purpose during the invasion of the Pretender. We might reasonably expect to find in caves turned to these uses objects left behind, which would tell us something of the manners and customs of their possessors, and light up the catalogue of battles and intrigues of which history generally consists. The results obtained from the Brit-Welsh group of caves, treated in the [third] chapter, show that this hitherto neglected branch of the inquiry is not without value to the historian.

Caves containing remains of this kind may be conveniently termed historic, because they may be brought into relation with history. It must, however, be carefully remarked that the term does not relate to history in general, but to that in particular of each country which happens to be under investigation. The misapprehension of this has caused great confusion, and many mistakes in archæological classification and reasoning.

Again, our experience of the habits of rude and uncivilized peoples would naturally lead us to look to caves, as the places in which we should be likely to meet with the remains of the men who lived in Europe before the dawn of history. Such remains we do find that, placed side by side with others from the tombs and dwellings, enable us to discover some, at least, of the races who lived in Europe in long-forgotten times, and to ascertain roughly the sequence of events in the remote past, far away from the historical border. It may, indeed, seem a hopeless quest to recover what has been buried in oblivion so long, and it is successful merely through the careful comparison of the human skeletons in the caves and tombs of Britain, France, and Spain, with those of existing races, and of the implements and weapons with those which are now used among savage tribes. By this means we shall see that there are good grounds for extending the range of the Iberian people over a considerable area in Europe, and for the belief that the Eskimos once lived as far south as Auvergne. In discussing both these problems it will be impossible to shut our eyes to the continuity that exists between geology, archæology, biology, and history—sciences which at first sight appear isolated from each other.

The bones of the domestic animals in the caves will necessarily lead to the further examination of the appearance and disappearance of breeds under the care of man. And this complicated question has an important bearing not merely on the ethnology, but also on the history, of some of the European peoples. It must be admitted, however, that this branch of the subject is, as yet, known merely in outline, and we can only hope to ascertain a few facts which may form a basis for future investigation.

From another point of view the contents of caves are peculiarly valuable. They have been used as places of shelter, not merely by man, but by wild animals, from the time they first became accessible to the present day. In the same way, therefore, as now they contain, in their superficial layers, the bones of sheep, oxen, and horses, foxes, rabbits, and badgers, so in their deeper strata lie buried the remains of the animals which were living in Europe long before the historic times. In other words, they enable us to make out the groups of animals inhabiting the neighbouring districts, and which in many cases have either forsaken their original abodes or have become extinct. And since those which are extinct, or which have migrated, could not have lived where their remains are found under the present conditions of life, an inquiry into their history leads us into the general question of the ancient European climate and geography. It is obvious, for example, that the spotted hyæna, which formerly inhabited the caves of Sicily, could not have crossed over to that island after it was separated from Africa and Italy; and it would be impossible for the musk-sheep, the most arctic of the herbivora, to live as far south as Auvergne under the present climatal conditions. The presence, therefore, of these animals in these districts is proof in the one case of a geographical, and in the other of a climatal, change.

The discussion of all these questions is comprehended under the second, or biological, division of cave-hunting, which may be defined as an inquiry into the remains of man and animals found in the caves, and into the conditions under which they lived in Europe.

The three Classes of Bone-caves.

In the biological branch of the subject the caves will be treated first which are comprehended within the limits of history; then we shall pass on to the investigation of Prehistoric caves, or those which have been inhabited in the interval that separates history from the remote geological era, which is characterized by the existence of the extinct mammalia in Europe. And, lastly, those will be examined which have furnished the remains of the extinct animals, and which are termed by the geologists Pleistocene, from the fact that a larger percentage of existing species were then living than in the preceding Pleio-, Meio-, and Eocene periods. The equivalent terms “Quaternary,” used by many French geologists, and the “Post-pleiocene division of the Post-tertiary Formation,” used by Sir Charles Lyell, are not adopted in this work, because they imply a break in the continuity of life, which does not exist. “Pleistocene” was invented and subsequently discarded by Sir C. Lyell,[3] and is at present used by many eminent writers, such as Forbes, Phillips, Gervais, and others. The ossiferous caves will therefore be divided into the Historic, Prehistoric, and Pleistocene groups. And it will be more convenient to work backwards in time from the basis offered by history, than to begin with the Pleistocene, or oldest division, and bring the narrative down to the present day.

This classification, founded in part on the principle of change in the animal world, and partly on the basis offered by history, coincides, only in part, with that of the archæologists based on the remains of man’s handiwork. The Pleistocene age is the equivalent of the Palæolithic, or that of rude unpolished stone; the Prehistoric represents the ages of polished stone, bronze, and iron in part, or those stages in human progress when the use of these materials became general for the purposes of every-day life; while the Historic covers merely the later portion of that of iron.

History of Cave-Exploration in Europe.

Germany.—The rest of this chapter must be devoted to an outline of the history of cave-exploration during the last two centuries. The dread of the supernatural, which preserved the European caves from disturbance, was destroyed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by the search after “ebur fossile,” or unicorn’s horn, which ranked high in the materia medica of those days as a specific for many diseases, and which was obtained, in great abundance, in the caverns of the Hartz, and in those of Hungary and Franconia. As the true nature of the drug gradually revealed itself, the German caves became famous for the remains of the lions, hyænas, fossil elephants, and other strange animals, which had been used for medicine. We owe the first philosophical discussion on the point to Dr. Gesner,[4] who, although he maintained that the fossil unicorn consisted, in some cases, of elephant’s teeth and tusks, and in others of its fossil bones, did not altogether give up the idea of its medicinal value. It is a singular fact, that fossil remains of a similar kind are, at the present time, used by the Chinese for the same purpose, and sold in their druggists’ shops.[5] The cave which was most famous at the end of the seventeenth century was that of Bauman’s Hole, in the Hartz, in the district of Blankenbourg. It is noticed in the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1662, and was subsequently described by Dr. Behrens,[6] Leibnitz, De Luc, and Cuvier, along with others in the neighbourhood. Those of Hungary come next in point of discovery, the first notice of them being due to Patterson Hayne in 1672. They penetrate the southern slopes of the Carpathian ranges, and are known by the name of dragons’ caves, because the bones which they contain had been considered from time immemorial to belong to those animals by the country people. These remains were identified by Baron Cuvier as belonging to the cave-bear.[7]

It was not, however, until the close of the eighteenth century that the exploring of caves was carried on systematically, or their contents examined with any scientific precision. The caves of Franconia, in the neighbourhood of Muggendorf, were described by Esper in 1774, by Rosenmuller in 1804, and six years later by Dr. Goldfuss. The most important was that of Gailenreuth, both from the vast quantity of remains which it was proved to contain, and the investigations to which it led. The bones of the hyæna, lion, wolf, fox, glutton, and red deer were identified by Baron Cuvier; while some of the skulls which Dr. Goldfuss obtained have been recently proved, by Professor Busk, to belong to the grizzly bear. They were associated with the bones of the reindeer, horse and bison. Rosenmuller was of opinion that the cave had been inhabited by bears for a long series of generations; and he thus realized that these remains proved that the animals found in the cave had once lived in that district, and had not been swept from the tropics by the deluge. The interest in these discoveries was at its height in the year 1816, when Dr. Buckland visited the cave, and acquired that knowledge of cave-exploring which he was subsequently to use with such good effect in this country.[8] From this time down to the present day, no new fact of importance has been added to our knowledge of caves by explorations in Germany.

Great Britain.—The first bone-cave systematically explored in this country was that discovered by Mr. Whidbey,[9] in the Devonian limestone at Oreston, near Plymouth, in 1816; and the remains obtained from it were identified by Sir Everard Home as implying the existence of the rhinoceros in that region. This discovery followed close upon the researches in Gailenreuth, and was due in some degree to the request which Sir Joseph Banks made, that Mr. Whidbey, in quarrying the stone for the Plymouth breakwater, should examine the contents of any caverns that he might happen to meet with. It preceded Dr. Buckland’s exploration of Kirkdale by about four years.

In the summer of 1821 a cave was discovered, in a limestone quarry at Kirkdale, in Yorkshire, which was found to contain bones and teeth of animals. On hearing of the discovery, Dr. Buckland posted at once from South Wales to the spot, and published the result of the explorations in the Philosophical Transactions for the next year. He brought forward evidence that the cave had been inhabited by hyænas, and that the broken and gnawed bones of the rhinoceros, mammoth, stag, bison, and horse belonged to animals which had been dragged in for food. He also established the fact that all these animals had lived in Yorkshire in ancient times, and that it was impossible for the carcases of the hyæna, rhinoceros, and mammoth to have been floated from those regions where they are now living into the position where he found their bones. He subsequently followed up the subject by investigating bone-caves in Derbyshire, South Wales, and Somerset, as well as in Germany, and published his great work, “Reliquiæ Diluvianæ,” in 1822, which laid the foundations of the new science of cave-hunting in this country. The exploration of Kirkdale followed closely upon that of Gailenreuth, and was merely the application of those principles of research which had been discovered in Germany to caves in a new district.

From this time forward bone-caves were discovered in Great Britain in increasing numbers, and explored by many independent observers. The famous cavern of Kent’s Hole, near Torquay, furnished the Rev. J. McEnery, between 1825 and the year 1841, in which he died, with the first flint implements ever discovered in a cave along with the bones of extinct animals. He recognized the fact that they may be proof of the existence of man during the time that those animals were alive; but the scientific world was not then sufficiently educated to accept the antiquity of the human race on the evidence brought forward, and Dr. Buckland himself was so influenced by the opinions of his times, that he refused even to entertain the idea. Although the discovery was verified by the independent researches of Mr. Godwin Austin in 1840, and by the Torquay Natural History Society in 1846, the force of prejudice was so strong, that the matter was not thought even worthy of investigation. Mr. McEnery’s manuscripts were lost until the year 1859, when an abstract of them was published by Mr. Vivian, and subsequently they were printed in full by Mr. Pengelly, the able superintendent of the exploration which has been carried on by a committee of the British Association since 1865, by whom several thousand flint implements have been obtained, under the conditions pointed out by the Rev. J. McEnery and Mr. Godwin Austen.[10]

While the important question of the antiquity of man was being passed by as of no account, other caves were being examined in this country. Those of Banwell, Burrington, Sandford Hill, Bleadon, and Hutton, in the mountain limestone of the Mendip hills, were being worked by the Rev. J. Williams and Mr. Beard, and furnished the magnificent collection of mammalian bones now in the museum at Taunton. In North Wales, also, Mr. Lloyd discovered a similar suite of bones in the limestone caves in the neighbourhood of St. Asaph at Cefn, and in South Wales numerous remains were obtained by many explorers in those of Pembrokeshire and Gower.

The result of these discoveries was the proof that certain extinct animals, such as the woolly rhinoceros and the mammoth, had lived in this country in ancient times, along with two other groups of species which are at present known only to live in hot and cold climates—the spotted hyæna and hippopotamus of Africa, with the reindeer and the marmot of the colder regions of the earth.

The discovery in 1858, and the exploration, of the now famous cave of Brixham, by the Royal and Geological Societies, marked the dawn of a new era in cave-hunting. Under the careful supervision of Mr. Pengelly, flint implements were discovered underneath stalagmite, and in association with the remains of the hyæna and woolly rhinoceros and mammoth, in undisturbed red loam, under conditions that prove man to have been living in Devonshire at the same time as those animals. This singularly opportune discovery destroyed for ever the doubts that had overhung the question of the antiquity of man, and of his co-existence in Europe in company with the animals whose remains occur both in the caverns and river-deposits.

In 1847 M. Boucher de Perthes described certain rude flint implements that he obtained from the fluviatile gravels of Abbeville (“Antiquités Celtiques,” vol. i.), along with the bones of extinct animals; and his discovery was treated with the same scepticism in France as that of the Rev. J. McEnery in England, although it was verified by flint implements being discovered, under exactly the same conditions, in the gravels of Amiens, some forty miles away, by Dr. Rigollot.[11] In the autumn of 1858, Dr. Falconer, who had been superintending the work in the Brixham cave, visited the collection made by M. de Perthes, while on his way to examine the caves of Sicily, and recognizing man’s handiwork in the implements, he asked his friend Mr. Prestwich to explore the Valley of the Somme. This he accordingly did, and in company with Mr. John Evans, F.R.S., dug out with his own hands an implement from the undisturbed strata,[12] and thus finally settled the disputed question. It is undoubtedly true, that scientific opinion was tending towards the acceptance of the evidence in favour of man having lived in Europe in the Pleistocene age; but the researches in Brixham cave established the fact on the highest possible authority, and confirmed the long-neglected discoveries in the valley of the Somme. By the end of 1859 it was fully accepted by the scientific world, and caused the exploration of caves to be carried on with increased vigour.

In December 1859,[13] I began the exploration of the hyæna-den of Wookey Hole, near Wells, Somerset, in company with the Rev. J. Williamson, and obtained flint instruments along with the remains of the mammoth, hyæna, woolly rhinoceros, and other animals, under conditions that proved the contemporaneity of man with the extinct mammalia. And from that time down to the present date I have carried on researches in caves in various parts of Great Britain. In the district of Gower also, many ossiferous caverns were investigated, in 1858–9–60–1 by Colonel Wood and Dr. Falconer, and in one of them flint implements were obtained along with the bones of the extinct mammalia.[14] Kent’s Hole, begun in 1865 by the British Association, and still being worked, furnishes annually a vast number of bones and teeth of hyænas, rhinoceroses, cave-bears, and horses, and other animals, along with flint and bone implements.[15]

In 1869 I had the good fortune to discover, and subsequently to explore, a group of sepulchral caves in Denbighshire, which had been used by an Iberian or Basque race in the Neolithic age (Chapter V.); and in the following year the Settle Cave Committee began their work in Yorkshire under my advice. And this has led to the important conclusion, that a group of caves, extending over a wide area in the centre and north of England, was occupied by the Brit-Welsh in the obscure interval which elapsed between the departure of the Roman legions and the English conquest.

France.—The researches of Buckland into the caves of Great Britain, and of Goldfuss and others into those of Germany, and more especially the publication of the “Ossemens Fossiles,” by Cuvier, gave an impetus to cave-exploration in France which yielded the same results as in our own country. The mammalia obtained from the cave of Fouvent (Haut Saone) in 1800 were described in the “Ossemens,” as well as those from Gondenans. In the Gironde, the Cave of Avison was explored by M. Billaudel in 1826–27. In the south, Marcel de Serres, aided by MM. Dubrueil and Jeanjean, examined the important Cave of Lunel-viel in 1824, and published their results in a work that holds the same position in France as the “Reliquiæ Diluvianæ” in England. The caverns of Pondres, Souvignargues, and of Bize were explored, the two first by M. Christol in 1829, the last by M. Tournal in 1833, and those of Villefranche (Pyrénées-orient), Mialet (Gard), and Nabrigas (Lozère) were described by De Serres in 1839, who subsequently added those of Carcas-sonne to the list in 1842. In this year MM. Prevost and J. Desnoyers explored the caves of Montmorency in the neighbourhood of Paris, and described the remains discovered in those of Bicêtre. The Cave of Pontil (Hérault) described by M. de Serres in 1847, was proved in 1864, by Professor Gervais, to contain two distinct strata, the neolithic lying over the palæolithic, as in Kent’s Hole.[16]

In 1860,[17] the famous Cave of Aurignac was proved, by the investigations of Professor Lartet, to have been inhabited by man in the life-time of the extinct mammalia. Three years later the caves of Périgord were explored by that gentleman, along with Mr. Christy, and yielded results which mark a new era in the history of man in the remote past. From the remarkable collection of implements and weapons, the habits and mode of life of the occupants can be ascertained with tolerable certainty, and from their comparison with the like articles now in use among savage tribes, it may be reasonably inferred that they were closely related in blood to the Eskimos. This most important question will be investigated in its proper place, in the chapter relating to the palæolithic caves of France. Professor Lartet, M. Louis Lartet, Sir Charles Lyell, and other eminent observers believe further, that the interments that have been discovered in Aurignac and in Cro Magnon,[18] in Périgord, are to be assigned to the same relative age as the occupation of the caves by man. From the fact, however, that the skeletons in both these cases were above the strata accumulated by the palæolithic cave-dwellers, it may be concluded that they were deposited after those strata were formed, in other words, that they are of a later age.

From 1863 down to the present time very many caves have been explored in France without any further addition to our knowledge, excepting the verification of the facts, afforded by the caves of Brixham and of Périgord, as to the co-existence of man with the extinct mammalia, and his probable identity in race with the Eskimos.

Belgium.—The caves of Belgium[19] have afforded evidence of precisely the same nature as those of England and France. Dr. Schmerling, of Liège, published the results of his researches, begun in 1829, into the bone-caves on the banks of the Meuse and its tributaries, in 1833–4, and proved that the mammoth, rhinoceros, cave-bear, and hyæna formerly lived in that district. He also arrived at the conclusion that man was living at that remote time, from the discovery of flint-flakes and human bones along with the remains of those animals in the caves of Engis and Engihoul. In 1853,[20] Professor Spring discovered a quantity of burned, broken, and cut bones belonging to women and children, in the Cave of Chauvaux, which he considered to imply that it had been inhabited by a family of cannibals. Axes of polished stone were also met with, that indicated the relative age to be neolithic.

To pass over the human skeleton found in the Neanderthal Cave in 1857 by Dr. Fuhlroth, which is of doubtful antiquity, the next discoveries of importance are those made by M. Dupont in the years 1864–70, in the province of Namur, that established the fact that the same race of men who inhabited Auvergne in the palæolithic age had also lived in Belgium. M. Dupont considers that the interments in the Trou de Frontal[21] belong also to the palæolithic age, and that therefore man at that remote time was possessed of religious ideas. Before, however, this view can be accepted, it will be necessary to show the exact relation of the bones of the reindeer, chamois, mammoth, and other animals found outside the slab of stone, at the mouth of the sepulchral chamber, to the human remains within. In this case, as in Aurignac and Cro Magnon, the evidence seems to me insufficient to establish so important a conclusion.

Southern Europe.—In southern Europe the bone-caves of Sicily, worked in 1829 for the sake of the animal remains to be used in sugar refining, were scientifically examined by Dr. Falconer in 1859; those of Malta by Captain Spratt in the same year; and those of Gibraltar by Captain Broome in the years 1862–8. They established the existence of the serval and the African elephant, and other characteristic African species, in Europe, and offer as we shall see in this work, important testimony as to the geography of the Mediterranean area in the Pleistocene age.

In this outline of the history of cave-exploration it will be seen, that the additions to our knowledge of the past have been neither few nor insignificant, nor in one line of inquiry. And if the attention which is now being directed to the subject be due to the general development of scientific thought, it is equally true, that the results have reacted on scientific thought in general, and have especially benefited the sciences of geology, archæology, and history. A rich field of investigation lies before the cave-hunter, in Greece, Palestine, Lycia, Persia, and the limestone plateaux of central Asia; and since these discoveries have been so valuable in central and north-western Europe, what may we not recover from the grasp of oblivion, of the infancy and early culture of mankind in the very birth-place and “pathway of the nations”?

CHAPTER II.
PHYSICAL HISTORY OF CAVES.

Caves formed by the Sea and by Volcanic Action.—Caves in Arenaceous Rocks.—Caves in Calcareous Rocks of various ages.—Their Relation to Pot-holes, “Cirques,” and Ravines.—The Water-cave of Wookey Hole.—The Goatchurch Cave.—The Water-caves of Derbyshire.—Of Yorkshire.—The Ingleborough Cave.—The Rate of Deposit of Stalagmite.—The Descent into Helln Pot.—The Caves and Pots round Weathercote.—The Formation of Caves, Pot-holes, and Ravines.—Caverns not generally formed in line of Faults.—Of various Ages.—Their Filling-up.—The Cave of Caldy.—The Blackrock Cave.—Great quantity of Carbonate of Lime dissolved by Atmospheric Water.—The Circulation of Carbonate of Lime.—The Temperature of Caves.—Conclusion.

Caves formed by the Sea and by Volcanic Action.

In this chapter we shall treat of the origin of caves and of their place in physical geography. The most obvious agent in hollowing out caves is the sea. The set of the current, the tremendous force of the breakers, and the grinding of the shingle, inevitably discover the weak places in the cliff, and leave caves as the results of their work, modified in each case by the local conditions of the rock. Caves formed in this manner have certain characters which are easily recognized. Their floors are very rarely much out of the horizontal, their outlook is over the sea, and they very seldom penetrate far into the cliff. A general parallelism is also to be observed in a group in the same district, and their entrances are all in the same horizontal plane, or in a succession of horizontal and parallel planes. In some cases they are elevated above the present reach of the waves, and mark the line at which the sea formerly stood. From their generally inaccessible position sea-caves have very rarely been occupied by man, and the history of their formation is so obvious that it requires no further notice. Among them the famous Fingal’s Cave, off the north coast of Ireland, and that of Staffa, on the opposite shore of Scotland, hollowed out of columnar basalt, are perhaps the most remarkable in Europe.

In volcanic regions also there are caves formed by the passage of lava to the surface of the ground, or by the imprisoned steam and gases in the lava while it was in a molten state: but these are of comparatively little importance so far as relates to the general question of caves, from the very small areas which are occupied by active volcanoes in Europe. They have been observed in Vesuvius, Etna, Iceland, and Teneriffe.

Caves in Arenaceous Rocks.

Caves also occur sometimes in sandstones, in which case they are the result of the erosion of the lines of the joints by the passage of subaërial water, and if the joints happen to traverse a stratum less compacted than the rest, the weak point is discovered, and a hollow is formed extending laterally from the original fissure. The massive millstone grit of Derbyshire and Yorkshire present many examples of this, as for instance in Kinderscout in the former county. The rocks at Tunbridge Wells also show to what extent the joints in the Wealden sandstones may become open fissures, more or less connected with caves, on a small scale, by the mere mechanical action of water. M. Desnoyers gives instances of the same kind in the Tertiary sandstones of the Paris basin, which have furnished remains of rhinoceros, reindeer, hyæna, and bear. Caverns, however, in the sandstone are rarely of great extent, and may be passed over as being of small importance in comparison with those in the calcareous rocks.

Caves in Calcareous Rocks of various ages.

It has long been known that wherever the calcareous strata are sufficiently hard and compact to support a roof, caves are to be found in greater or less abundance. Those of Devonshire occur in the Devonian limestone; those of Somerset, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Northumberland, as well as of Belgium and Westphalia, in that of the carboniferous age. In France also, those of Maine and Anjou, and most of those of the Pyrenees and in the department of Aude, are hollowed in carboniferous limestone, as well as the greater part of those in North America, in Virginia, and Kentucky. The cave of Kirkdale in Yorkshire, and most of those in Franconia and in Bavaria penetrate Jurassic limestones, which have received the name of Hohlenkalkstein from the abundance of caverns which they contain. They are developed on a large scale in the Swiss and French Jura, and in some cases afford passage to powerful streams, and in others are more or less filled with ice, thus constituting the singular “glacières” that have been so ably explored by the Rev. G. F. Browne.[22]

The compact Neocomian and Cretaceous limestones contain most of the caverns of Périgord, Quercy, and Angoumois, and some of those in Provence and Languedoc, those of Northern Italy, Sicily, Greece, Dalmatia, Carniola, and Turkey in Europe, of Asia Minor and Palestine.

The tertiary limestones, writes M. Desnoyers,[23] offer sometimes, but very rarely, caves that have become celebrated for the bones which they contain, such as those of Lunel-Viel, near Montpelier, those of Pondres and Souvignargues, near Sommières (Gard), and of Saint Macaire (Gironde). The same may also be said of the calcaire grossier of the basin of Paris.

Certain rocks composed of gypsum also contain caverns of the same sort as those in the limestones. In Thuringia, for example, near Eisleben, they occur in the saliferous and gypseous strata of the zechstein, and are connected with large gulfs and cirques on the surface, which are sometimes filled with water. In the neighbourhood of Paris, and especially at Montmorency, they contain numerous bones of the extinct mammalia. M. Desnoyers points out their identity, in all essentials, with those in calcareous strata, and infers that they have been produced in the same way. Some of them may have been formed by the removal of the salt, which is very frequently interbedded with the gypsum, by the passage of water. In Cheshire the pumping of the brine from the saliferous and gypseous strata produces subterranean hollows, which sometimes fall in and eventually cause depressions on the surface, such as those which are now destroying the town of Northwich, and causing the neighbouring tidal estuary to extend over what was formerly meadow land. This explanation, however, will not apply to those in the neighbourhood of Paris, because there is no trace of their ever having contained salt.

The Relation of Caves to Pot-holes, “Cirques,” and Ravines.

The caverns hollowed in calcareous rocks present features by which they are distinguished from any others. They open, for the most part, on the abrupt sides of valleys and ravines at various levels, being arranged round the main axis of erosion just as branches are arranged round the trunk of a tree—as, for example, in Cheddar Pass. The transition in some cases from the valley to the ravine, and from the ravine to the cave, is so gradual, that it is impossible to deny that all three are due to the same cause. The caves themselves ramify in the same irregular fashion as the valleys, and are to be viewed merely as the capillaries in the general valley system, through which the rainfall passes to join the main channels. Very frequently, however, the drainage has found an outlet at a lower level, and its ancient passage is left dry; but in all cases unmistakeable proof of the erosive action of water is to be seen in the sand, gravel, and clay which compose the floor, as well as in the worn surfaces of the sides and the bottom.

In all districts in which caves occur are funnel-shaped cavities of various sizes, known as “pot-holes” or “swallow-holes” in Britain, as “betoires,” “chaldrons du diable,” “marmites de géants,” in France, and as “kata-vothra” in Greece, in which the rainfall is collected before it finally disappears in the subterranean passages. They are to be seen in all stages; sometimes being mere shallow funnels, that only contain water after excessive rain, and at others as profound vertical shafts, into which the water is continually falling, as in Helln Pot, in Yorkshire. The cirques, also, described by M. Desnoyers, belong to the same class of cavities, although all those which are mentioned by the Rev. T. G. Bonney,[24] at the head of valleys, and in some cases hollowed in shale and igneous rocks, are most probably to be referred to the vertical, chisel-like action of streams flowing under physical conditions, that resemble those under which the cañons of the Colorado, or of the Zambesi, are being excavated, and in which frost, ice, and snow have played a very subordinate part.

The intimate relation between pot-holes, caves, ravines, and valleys will be discussed in the rest of this chapter, and illustrated by English examples; and then we shall proceed to show that the chemical action of the carbonic acid in the rain-water, and the mechanical friction of the sand and gravel, set in motion by the water, by which Professor Phillips explains the origin of caves, will equally explain the pot-holes and ravines by which they are invariably accompanied.

The Water-Cave of Wookey Hole, near Wells, Somerset.

Caves may be divided into two classes: those which are now mere passages for water, in which the history of their formation may be studied, and those which are dry, and capable of affording shelter to man and the lower animals. Among the water-caves, that of Wookey Hole[25] is to be noticed first, since its very name implies that it was known to the Celtic inhabitants of the south of England, and since it was among the first, if not the first, of those examined with any care in this country, Mr. John Beaumont[26] having brought it before the notice of the Royal Society in the year 1680.

The hamlet of Wookey Hole nestles in a valley, through which flows the river Axe, and the valley passes insensibly, at its upper end, into a ravine, which is closed abruptly by a wall of rock ([Fig. 1]), about two hundred feet high, covered with long streamers and festoons of ivy, and affording scanty hold, on its ledges and in its fissures, to ferns, brambles, and ash saplings. At its base the river Axe issues, in full current, out of the cave, the lower entrance of which it completely blocks up, since the water has been kept back by a weir, for the use of a paper-mill a little distance away. A narrow path through the wood, on the north side of the ravine, leads to the only entrance now open.[27] Thence a narrow passage leads downward into the rock, until, suddenly, you find yourself in a large chamber, at the water level. Then you pass over a ridge, covered with a delicate fretwork of dripstone, with each tiny hollow full of water, and ornamented with brilliant lime crystals. One shapeless mass of dripstone is known in local tradition as the Witch of Wookey, turned into stone by the prayers of a Glastonbury monk. Beyond this the chamber expands considerably, being some seventy or eighty feet high, and adorned with beautiful stalactites, far out of the reach of visitors. The water, which bars further entrance, forms a deep pool, which Mr. James Parker managed to cross on a raft (see [Appendix I].) into another chamber, which was apparently easy of access before the construction of the weir. It was in this further chamber that Dr. Buckland found human remains and pottery.

Fig. 1.—Diagram of Wookey Hole Cave and Ravine.

The cave has been proved to extend as far as the village of Priddy, about two miles off, on the Mendip hills, by the fact observed by Mr. Beaumont, that the water used in washing the lead ore at that spot, in his time, found its way into the river Axe, and poisoned cattle in the valley of Wookey. And this observation has been verified during the last few years by throwing in colour and chopped straw. The stream at Priddy sinks into a swallow-hole ([Fig. 1]), and has its subterranean course determined by the southerly dip of the rock, by which the joints running north and south afford a more free passage to the water than those running east and west. The cave is merely a subterranean extension of the ravine in the same line, as far as the swallow-hole, and all three have been hollowed, as we shall see presently, by the action of the stream and of carbonic acid in the water.

The Goatchurch Cave.

The largest cavern in the Mendip hills is that locally known as the Goatchurch, which opens on the eastern side of the lower of the two ravines that branch from the magnificent defile of Burrington Combe, about two miles from the village of Wrington, at the height of about 120 feet from the bottom of the ravine. After creeping along a narrow, muddy passage, with a steep descent to the west, at an angle of about 30°, you suddenly pass into a stalactitic chamber of considerable height and size. From it two small vertical shafts lead into the lower set of chambers and passages; the first being blocked up, and the second being close to a large barrel-shaped stalagmite, to which Mr. Ayshford Sanford, Mr. James Parker, and myself fastened our ropes when we explored the cave in 1864. The latter affords access into a passage, beautifully arched, and passing horizontally east and west, and just large enough to admit a man walking upright. At the further end numerous open fissures, caused by the erosion of the joints in the limestone, cross it at right angles, and pass into several ill-defined chambers, partially stalactitic, but for the most part filled with loose, bare, cubical masses of limestone. Two of the transverse fissures lead into a large chamber, at a lower level. At its lower end, on crawling along a narrow passage, we came into a second chamber, also of considerable height and depth, at the bottom of which the noise of flowing water can be heard through two vertical holes, just large enough to admit of access. On sliding down one of these we found ourselves in a third chamber, which was traversed by a subterranean stream, doubtless in part the same which disappears in the ravine, at a point eighty feet above by aneroid measurement. The temperature of the water, as compared with that of the stream outside (49° : 59°), renders it very probable that, between the point of disappearance in the ravine and reappearance in the cave, it is joined by a stream of considerable subterranean length, since the water could not have lost ten degrees in the short interval which it had to traverse, were it supplied only from the stream in the ravine. From the point of its disappearance in the cave, the water passes downwards to join the main current flowing underneath Burrington Combe, that gushes forth in great volume at Rickford. The lowest portion of the cave was eighteen or twenty feet below the stream, and 220 feet below the entrance of the cavern.

On examining the floors of the chambers and passages, we discovered that they were composed of the same kind of sediment as that which is now being deposited by the water in Wookey Hole, and there could be no doubt but that they had been originally traversed by water. For this to have taken place it is necessary to suppose that, while the Goatchurch was a water cave, the ravine on which it opens was not deeper than the entrance—in other words, that in the interval between the formation and excavation of the chambers and passages, to the present time, the ravine has been excavated in the limestone to a depth of a hundred and twenty feet, and the water which originally passed through the entrance has found its way, by a new series of passages, to the point where it appears at the bottom of the cave.

We obtained evidence that the horizontal passage, immediately below the first vertical descent, had been inhabited at a very remote period. At the spot where Mr. Beard, of Banwell, obtained a fine tusk of mammoth, we found a molar of bear, and a fragment of flint, which were imbedded in red earth, and were underneath a crust of stalagmite of about two inches in thickness. It would follow from this, that the date of the formation of this part of the cave was before the time when the traces of elephants, bears, and of man were introduced.

The cave is the resort of numerous badgers. On hiding ourselves in one of the transverse fissures, and throwing our light across the horizontal passage, these animals ran to and fro across the lighted field with extraordinary swiftness, and had it not been for the white streaks on the sides of their heads, which flashed back the light, they would not have been observed. Though they are rarely caught, they must be abundant in the district.

Like all the other large caverns in the district, it has its legends. The dwellers in the neighbourhood, who have never cared to explore its recesses, relate that a certain dog put in here found its way out, after many days, at Wookey Hole, having lost all its hair in scrambling through the narrow passages. At Cheddar the same legend is appropriated to the Cheddar cave. At Wookey the dog is said to have travelled back to Cheddar. Some eighteen years ago, while exploring the limestone caves at Llanamynech, on the English border of Montgomeryshire, I met with a similar story. A man playing the bagpipes is said to have entered one of the caves, well provisioned with Welsh mutton, and after he had been in for some time his bagpipes were heard two miles from the entrance, underneath the small town of Llanamynech. He never returned to tell his tale. The few bones found in the cave are supposed to be those which he had picked on the way. This is doubtless another form of the story of the dog; both owe their origin to the vague impression, which most people have, of the great extent of caverns, and both versions are equally current in France and Germany.

The Water-caves of Derbyshire.

The celebrated cavern of the Peak, at Castleton in Derbyshire, presents the same essential character as that of Wookey Hole. It runs into the hill-side at the end of the ravine, and is traversed by a powerful stream of water, which has been met with in driving an horizontal adit in lead-mining at a considerable distance from the entrance, and finally traced to a distant swallow-hole. At a little distance from Buxton a smaller cave, known as Poole’s Cavern, is in part traversed by water, which has found an outlet at a lower level, and allowed of the present entrance being used by the Brit-Welsh (Romano-Celtic) inhabitants of the district as a habitation in the fifth and sixth centuries.[28] There are, besides these, very many others, some known, others unknown, that debouch on the sides of the dales in Derbyshire and Staffordshire, and are all well worthy of examination, since they illustrate not merely the history of the formation of caves, but also have been proved to contain works of art, pottery and flint implements, and the remains of animals, such as the mammoth and rhinoceros.

The Water-caves of Yorkshire.

The caves in the mountain limestone of Yorkshire rival in size those of Carniola, or those of Greece, and they are to be seen in all stages of formation. In their gloomy recesses all the higher qualities of a mountaineer may be exercised, and there is sufficient danger to give a keen zest to their exploration. The mountain streams sometimes plunge into a yawning chasm, locally known as a pot, and at others emerge from the dark portals of a cave in full current. There is, perhaps, no place in the world where the subterranean circulation of water may be studied with better advantage.

Ingleborough forms a centre from which the rainfall on every side finds its way into the dales, through a system of caves more or less complicated, which during the last forty years have been thoroughly explored by Mr. Farrer, Mr. Birkbeck, and Mr. Metcalfe. On the south it collects in a ravine, and then leaps into a deep bottle-shaped hole called “Gaping Gill,” into which Mr. Birkbeck unsuccessfully attempted to descend, the sharp edges of the rock cutting the rope, and very nearly causing a serious accident. In depth it is about three hundred feet. The stream thence finds its way through a series of chambers and passages until it reappears in the famous Ingleborough cave, that was explored by Mr. Farrer in the year 1837, and proved to pass into the rock between seven and eight hundred yards.

The present entrance of the Ingleborough cave[29] is dry, except after heavy rains, when the current reverts to its old passage. The following admirable account of the interior is given by Professor Phillips:—[30]

“From Mr. Farrer’s plan and description, as given in the ‘Proceedings of the Geological Society,’ June 14, 1848, and from information obligingly communicated to me, a clear notion of the history of this most instructive spar grotto may be formed. For about eighty yards from the entrance the cave has been known immemorially. At this point Josiah Harrison, a gardener in Mr. Farrer’s service, broke through a stalagmitical barrier which the water had formed, and obtained access to a series of expanded cavities and contracted passages, stretching first to the N., then to the N.W.; afterwards to the N. and N.E., and finally to the E., till after two years spent in the interesting toil of discovery, at a distance of 702 yards from the mouth, the explorers rested from their labours in a large and lofty irregular grotto, in which they heard the sound of water falling in a still more advanced subterranean recess. It has been ascertained, at no inconsiderable personal risk, that this water falls into a deep pool or linn at a lower level, beyond which further progress appears to be impracticable. In fact Mr. Farrer explored this dark lake by swimming—a candle in his cap and a rope round his body.

“In this long and winding gallery, fashioned by nature in the marble heart of the mountain, floor, roof, and sides are everywhere intersected by fissures which were formed in the consolidation of the stone. To these fissures and the water which has passed down them, we owe the formation of the cave and its rich furniture of stalactites. The direction of the most marked fissures is almost invariably N.W. and S.E., and when certain of these (which in my geological work I have called master fissures) occur, the roof of the cave is usually more elevated, the sides spread out right and left, and often ribs and pendants of brilliant stalactite, placed at regular distances, convert the rude fissure into a beautiful aisle of primæval architecture. Below most of the smaller fissures hang multitudes of delicate translucent tubules, each giving passage to drops of water. Splitting the rock above, these fissures admit, or formerly admitted, dropping water: continued through the floor, the larger rifts permit, or formerly permitted, water to enter or flow out of the cave. By this passage of water, continued for ages on ages, the original fissure was in the first instance enlarged, through the corrosive action of streams of acidulated water; by the withdrawal of the streams to other fissures, a different process was called into operation. The fissure was bathed by drops instead of streams of water, and these drops, exposed to air currents and evaporation, yielded up the free carbonic acid to the air and the salt of lime to the rock. Every line of drip became the axis of a stalactitical pipe from the roof; every surface bathed by thin films of liquid became a sheet of sparry deposit. The floor grew up under the droppings into fantastic heaps of stalagmite, which, sometimes reaching the pipes, united roof and floor by pillars of exquisite beauty.”

At the time of its exploration, the water stood at a considerably higher level inside than at the present time, and formed deep pools. The barrier of dripstone has been cut through, and the water level lowered, and a passage made for a considerable distance. Inside, the old water line, which separated the subaërial from the subaqueous dripstone, is very distinct, the former being deposited in thick bosses, crumpled curtains, drops, straws, pyramids, and other fantastic drip-structures, while the latter is honeycombed, and composed of rounded, grape-like masses. Between them an ice-like coating of stalagmite forms a dividing line, now supported in mid air, but that formerly shot across the surface of the pools that have been drained, or rested on the mud and stones which had been brought down by the stream in ancient times. In some places it still rests on the surface of the pools.

A stalactitic curtain on the right-hand side presents a very singular appearance, its surface being covered with an abundant crop of tiny club-like bodies about one-tenth of an inch in length, and consisting each of a shining drop of water, enclosing a minute fungus. These may possibly explain in some degree the peculiar fungoid-appearance of certain small bosses of dripstone which I have met with in the caves of Pembrokeshire: for an accumulation of carbonate of lime on such a nucleus would produce the forms which they assume (see [Fig. 17]).

There are also magnificent groups of dripstone, and each joint in the rock is adorned with lines, and pipes, and fringes of calc spar, or widened out into roof-shaped hollows, and traversed by deep, vertical grooves, caused by the passage of water laden with carbonic acid. The general surface of the roof, where the rock is bare, has had its fossils etched out by the acidulated water. In one place you may stand under a branching coral, with its sides and base distinctly marked, and in another fossil shells stand out almost in their original beauty.

Rate of the Accumulation of Stalagmite.

The rate at which the calcareous matter is being deposited at the present time is very easy to be estimated, for that accumulated since the passage was cleared out is white, and contrasts with the dirty, grey-red colour of the older kind. In one case a thickness of 0·24 had been formed in thirty-five years, by the water flowing down the side of the passage excavated by Mr. Farrer, while in another, in about the same time, 0·05 inch had been formed. This would give an annual accumulation of 0·0068 in the one case, and in the other about one-fifth of that amount. This rate does not agree with the rate of increase noted by Mr. Farrer and Professor Phillips in the case of a large stalagmite called the Jockey Cap, on which a line of drops is continually falling from one point in the roof. Its circumference in 1839 measured 118 inches, in 1845, 120 inches, and in 1873, I found it to be 128 inches. The annual rate of increase from 1845 to 1873 is ·2941 inch, and that from 1839 to 1845 is ·2857. I found, however, that the most remarkable increase was that in height. In 1845 its apex was 95·25 inches from the roof, in 1873, 87 inches, which would imply an annual deposit of not less than ·2946. (See [Appendix II].) At this rate it will arrive at the roof in about 295 years. But even this comparatively short lapse of time will probably be diminished by the growth of a pendant stalactite above, that is now being formed in place of that which measured 10 inches in 1845, and has since been accidentally destroyed.

It is very possible that the Jockey Cap may be the result, not of the continuous, but of the intermittent drip of water containing carbonate of lime, and that therefore the present rate of growth is not a measure of its past or future condition. Its age in 1845 was estimated by Professor Phillips at 259 years, on the supposition that all or nearly all of the carbonate of lime in each pint was deposited. If, however, it grew at its present rate, it may be not more than 100 years old; and if it be taken as a measure of the rate generally, all the stalagmites and stalactites in the cave may not date further back than the time of Edward III.

It is evident, from this instance of rapid accumulation, that the value of a layer of stalagmite in measuring the antiquity of deposits 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, and the human bones which lie buried under the stalagmite in the cave of Bruniquel, are not for that reason to be taken to be of vast antiquity. It may be fairly concluded, that the thickness of layers of stalagmite cannot be used as an argument in support of the remote age of the strata below. At the rate of a quarter of an inch per annum, twenty feet of stalagmite might be formed in 1,000 years.

The Descent into Helln Pot.

The subterranean passages grouped round Helln Pot, a tremendous chasm near Selside, on the east of Simon’s Fell in Ribblesdale, illustrate in a remarkable degree the mode in which the water is at present wearing away the rock. Those which have been explored constitute the Long Churn Cavern, which is comparatively easy of access through a hole known as Diccan Pot ([Fig. 2], a). On descending into it, the visitor finds himself in the bed of a stream that now roars in a waterfall, now gurgles over the large fallen blocks from the roof, and that here and there has worn for itself deep pools by the mechanical friction of the sand and pebbles brought down by the current. If it be followed down after passing over a waterfall, the light of day is seen streaming upwards beneath the feet from the point where the water leaps into the great chasm of Helln Pot ([Figs. 2], b. 3, a). Above the entrance there is a complicated network of passages, some dry, and some containing streams which have not yet been fully explored.

Fig. 2.—Diagram of Helln Pot and the Long Churn Cavern.

The two actions by which caves are hewn out of the calcareous rock are seen here in operation side by side. Below the level of the stream the rock is seen to be smoothed and polished by the mechanical action of the materials swept down by the current. Above the water-level the sides of the cave are honeycombed and eaten into the most fantastic and complex shapes, the resultant surface (see [Fig. 7]) bearing small points and keen knife-edges of stone, that stand out in relief and mark the less soluble portions of the rock. This is due to the chemical effect of the carbonic acid in the water percolating through the strata.

Fig. 3.—Diagram of Helln Pot.

The Helln Pot, into which the stream flowing through the Long Churn Cave falls, is a fissure ([Figs. 2], [3], [4]) a hundred feet long by thirty feet wide, that engulfs the waters of a little stream on the surface, which are dissipated in spray long before they reach the bottom. From the top you look down on a series of ledges, green with ferns and mosses, and, about a hundred feet from the surface, an enormous fragment of rock forms a natural bridge across the chasm from one ledge to another. A little above this is the debouchement of the stream flowing through the Long Churn Cave ([Fig. 3], a), through which Mr. Birkbeck and Mr. Metcalfe made the first perilous descent in 1847. The party, consisting of ten persons, ventured into this awful chasm with no other apparatus than ropes, planks, a turn-tree, and a fire-escape belt. On emerging from the Long Churn Cave they stood on a ledge of rock about twelve feet wide, and which gave them free access to the “bridge” ([Fig. 2], b). This was a rock ten feet long, which rested obliquely on the ledges. Having crossed over this, they crept behind the waterfall which descended from the top, and fixed their pulley, five being let down while the rest of the party remained behind to hoist them up again. In this way they reached the bottom of the pot, which before had never been trod by the foot of man. Thence they followed the stream downwards as far as the first great waterfall, down which Mr. Metcalfe was venturesome enough to let himself with a rope, and to push onwards until daylight failed. He was within a very little of arriving at the end of the cave into which the stream flows, but was obliged to turn back to the daylight without having accomplished his purpose. The whole party eventually, after considerable danger and trouble, returned safely from this most bold adventure.

A second descent was made in 1848 from the surface, and a third in the spring of 1870, in both of which Mr. Birkbeck took the lead. The apparatus employed consisted of a windlass ([Fig. 3]), supported on two baulks of timber, and a bucket, covered with a shield, sufficiently large to hold two people, and two guiding ropes to prevent the revolution of the bucket in mid air. There was also a party of navvies to look after the mechanical contrivances, and two ladders about eight feet long to provide for contingencies at the bottom. Thirteen of us went down, including three ladies. As we descended, the fissure gradually narrowed, until at the bottom it was not more than ten feet wide. The actual vertical descent was a hundred and ninety-eight feet. After running the gauntlet of the waterfall we landed in the bed of the stream, which hurried downwards over large boulders of limestone and lost itself in the darkness of a large cave, about seventy feet high. We traced it downwards, through pools and rapids to the first waterfall, of about twenty feet. This obstacle prevented most of the party going further, for the ladders were too short to reach to the bottom. By lashing them together, however, and letting them down, we were able to reach the first round with the aid of a rope, and to cross over the deep pool at the bottom. Thence we went on downwards through smaller waterfalls and rapids, until we arrived at a descent into a chamber, where the roar of water was deafening. Down to this point the daylight glimmered feebly, but here our torches made but little impression on the darkness. One of the party volunteered to go down with a rope, and was suddenly immersed in a deep pool; the rest, profiting by his misadventure, managed to cling on to small points of rock, and eventually to reach the floor of the chamber. We stood at last on the lowest accessible point of the cave, about 300 feet from the surface. It was indeed one of the most remarkable sights that could possibly be imagined. Besides the waterfall down which we came, a powerful stream poured out of a cave too high up for the torches to penetrate the darkness, and fell into a deep pool in the middle of the floor, causing such a powerful current of air that all our torches were blown out except one. The two streams eventually united and disappeared in a small black circling pool, which completely barred further ingress.

Fig. 4.—Diagram of Helln Pot, showing Waterfall at the Bottom.

The floor of the pot and the cave was strewn with masses of limestone rounded by the action of the streams; and the water-channels were smoothed and grooved and polished, in a most extraordinary way, by the silt and stones carried along by the current. Some of the layers of limestone were jet black, and others were of a light fawn-colour, and as the strata were nearly horizontal, the alternation of colours gave a peculiarly striking effect to the walls. Beneath each waterfall was a pool more or less deep, and here and there in the bed of the stream were holes, drilled in the rock by stones whirled round by the force of the water. High up, out of the present reach of the water, were old channels, which had evidently been watercourses before the pot and cave had been cut down to their present level. In the sides of the pot there are two vertical grooves reaching very nearly from the top to the bottom, which are unmistakeably the work of ancient waterfalls. There was no stalactite, but everywhere the water was wearing away the rock and enlarging the cave. We found our way back without any difficulty, a small passage on the right-hand side enabling us to avoid the very unpleasant task of scrambling up two of the waterfalls. We arrived finally at the top, after about five hours’ work in the cave, wet to the skin.

We had very little trouble in making this descent, because of the completeness of Mr. Birkbeck’s preparations; but we could fully realize what a dangerous feat the first explorers performed when they ventured into an unknown chasm, comparatively unprepared. The very name “Helln Pot,” = Ællan Pot, or Mouth of Hell, testifies to the awe with which the Angles looked down into its recesses.[31]

Such is the interior of one of those great natural laboratories in which water is wearing away the solid rock, either hollowing it into caves or cutting it into ravines. At the bottom of Helln Pot it was impossible not to realize, that the enormous chasm had been formed by the same action as that by which it was being deepened before our eyes. It was merely a portion of the vast cave into which it led, which had been deprived of its roof, and opened out to the light of heaven. The bridge was but a fragment of the roof which happened to fall upon the two ledges. The rounded masses of rock at the bottom are fragments that have fallen probably within comparatively modern times. The absence of stalactites and of stalagmites proves that the destructive action is rapidly going on.

The water-course at the bottom contained pebbles and boulders of limestone, and gritstone rounded by friction against one another and the rocky floor. The gritstone has probably been derived from the wreck of the boulder clay on the surface above the Helln Pot, and ultimately torn from the millstone grit of the higher hills in the district.

Caves and Pots at Weathercote.

Fig. 5.—Waterfall in Pot-hole at Weathercote.

On the north side of Ingleborough the series of caves and pots round the little Church of Chapel-en-le-Dale are especially worthy of attention. The chasm at Weathercote opens suddenly in the hill-side, and is perfectly accessible to visitors. You come suddenly upon a cleft a hundred feet deep, with its ledges covered with mosses, ferns, and brambles; at one end a body of water rushes from a cave, and under a great bridge of rock, and falls seventy-five feet, a mass of snow-white foam filling the bottom with spray ([Fig. 5]). The large masses of rock piled in wild confusion at the bottom, the dark shadows of the overhanging ledges, and the thick covering of green moss, to which the spray clings in tiny glittering drops, form a picture which cannot easily be forgotten. In the sunshine an almost circular rainbow is to be seen from the bottom. The stream passes from the bottom into a cave, and thence downwards to two large pots ([Fig. 6]), about two hundred yards away. In flood-time the channel has been known to become blocked up, and Weathercote has been filled to the brim. Usually after heavy rains the current is said to flow so violently into the first of the pot-holes, that it throws up stones at least thirty or forty feet from the bottom, with a peculiar rattling noise. From this strange phenomenon it is known as Jingle Pot, while the lower of the two is termed Hurtle Pot, because in flood-time the water whirls so fast round, that it is “hurtled” out at the top. The water flowing through Weathercote is derived from the little stream of Ellerbeck, which disappears in the limestone hills about a mile to the north, and runs at right angles to Dalebeck, or the stream flowing down to Ingleton, which it has been proved to join at a spot below Jingle Pot, by Mr. Metcalfe, who made his way down into it from the chasm of Weathercote.

Fig. 6.—Diagram of Subterranean Course of Dalebeck.

The course of Dalebeck, as you pass up the valley of Chapel-en-le-Dale, affords a striking instance of the dependence of scenery upon the nature of the rock. In its lower portion it has cut out for itself a deep ravine in the hard Silurian strata, in which you come upon the waterfalls, deep pools, and trees, that look as if they had been transported bodily from the district of Cader Idris, and inserted into the limestone scenery of the dales. The Silurian rocks are very much contorted, and on their waterworn edges lie the nearly horizontal limestone strata, in which the upper part of the valley has been scooped. As we rise the ravine opens into a valley ([Fig. 6]), along which the beck flows, until suddenly it is lost in a fissure, at a place called Godsbridge. Its subterranean course is marked, first of all, by a small depression known as Sandpot, and still higher by Hurtle Pot. It ultimately reappears at the surface, above Weathercote, and after passing through a picturesque cavern, known as the Gatekirk, its fountainhead is reached. The subterranean portions of its course are in the same right line as the open valley, and the pot-holes have been formed in the same manner as Helln Pot, by the passage of water at a time when the drainage found its way down the valley at a higher level than at present, very much as it does now in times of extraordinary floods.

Water-caves such as these are by no means uncommon in Yorkshire. In the dales there is scarcely a mass of limestone without its subterranean water system, as well as channels deserted by water, which are now dry caves situated at higher levels. These are always arranged on the line of the natural drainage, and generally open on the sides of the valleys and precipices. If you look northward from the flat crown of Ingleborough, you can see the ravines which radiate from it on the surface of the shale below, abruptly ending in pot-holes when they reach the limestone. In each case the streams reappear, issuing out of the caves at the points in Chapel-en-le-Dale, where the horizontal beds of limestone rest on the upturned edges of the impermeable Silurian rocks.

The Formation of Caves and their Relation to Pot-holes and Ravines.

The general conditions under which caves occur in limestone rocks, and the phenomena which they present, may be gathered from the above examples. Universally the pot-holes, ravines, and caverns are so associated together, that there can be but little doubt that they are due to the operation of the same causes.

It requires but a cursory glance to see at once that running water was the main agent. The limestone is so traversed by joints and lines of shrinkage, that the water rapidly sinks down into its mass, and collects in small streams, which owe their direction to the dip of the strata and the position of the fissures. These channels are being continually deepened and widened by the mere mechanical action of the passage of stones and silt. But this is not the only way in which the rock is gradually eroded. The limestone is composed in great part of pure carbonate of lime, which is insoluble in water. It is, however, readily dissolved in any liquid containing carbonic acid, which is an essential part of our atmosphere, is invariably present in the rain-water, and is given off by all organic bodies. By this invisible agent the hard crystalline rock is always being attacked in some form or another. The very snails that take refuge in its crannies leave an enduring mark of their presence in a surface fretted with their acid exhalations, which sometimes pass current among geologists for the borings of pholades, and are the innocent cause of much speculation as to the depression of the mountain-tops beneath the sea in comparatively modern times. The carbonic acid taken up by the rain is derived, in the main, from the decomposing vegetable matter which generally forms the surface soil on the limestone.

Fig. 7.—Diagram of an acid-worn joint, Doveholes, Derbyshire.

The view from the ancient camp on the top of Ingleborough offers a striking example of the effect of rain-water in eroding the surface of the limestone. As you look down over the dark crags of millstone grit, great, grey, pavement-like masses of limestone strike the eye, standing above the heather, perfectly bare, and in the distance resembling clearings, and in rainy weather sheets of snow. On approaching them the surface of erosion becomes more and more apparent, and the shapes due to the mere accident of varying hardness in the rock, or the varying quantity of water passing over it, present a most astonishing variety. There are, however, general principles underlying the confusion. The lines of joints in the strata being lines of weakness, searched out by the acid-laden water, have been widened into chasms, sometimes of considerable depth; and as they cross at right angles, the whole surface is formed of rectangular masses, each insulated from its fellow, and some of them detached from the strata beneath so as to form rocking-stones. The mode in which the acid has attacked one of these joints in the limestone of Doveholes in Derbyshire is represented in [Figure 7], the surface being honeycombed and worn into sharp points, solely by chemical action. The minute fossil-shells also, and fragments of crinoid standing out in bold relief, lead to the same conclusion—that the denuding agent is chemical and not mechanical. Each of the upper surfaces of the blocks is traversed by small depressions, which are valley systems in miniature, in which the tiny valleys converge into a main trunk leading into the nearest chasm. There are also tiny caves and hollows, that are sometimes mistaken for borings made by pholas. In the chasms the vegetation is most luxuriant, and the dark green fronds of harts-tongue, the delicate Lady-fern, and the graceful Asplenium nigrum, grow with a rare luxuriance.

In these pavements every feature of limestone scenery is represented on a minute scale. There are the valley systems on the surface, determined by the direction of the drainage; the long chasms represent the open valleys and ravines, and the caves and hollows, for the most part, run in the line of the joints.

The carbonic acid has left precisely the same kind of proof of its work within the caves as we find above-ground; and it would necessarily follow, that to it, as well as to the mechanical power of the waters flowing through them, their formation and enlargement must be due, as Professor Phillips has pointed out in his “Rivers, Mountains, and Sea Coast of Yorkshire,” pp. 30–1.

From the preceding pages it will be seen that caves in calcareous rocks are merely passages hollowed out by water, which has sought out the lines of weakness, or the joints formed by the shrinkage of the strata during their consolidation. The work of the carbonic acid is proved, not merely by the acid-worn surfaces of the interior of the caves, but also by the large quantity of carbonate of lime which is carried away by the water in solution. That, on the other hand, of the mechanical friction of the stones and sand against the sides and bottom of the water-courses, is sufficiently demonstrated by their grooved, scratched, and polished surfaces, and by the sand, silt, and gravel carried along by the currents. The generally received hypothesis, that they have been the result of a subterranean convulsion, is disproved by the floor and roof being formed, in very nearly every case, of solid rock; for it would be unreasonable to hold that any subterranean force could act from below, in such a manner as to hollow out the complicated and branching passages, at different levels, without affecting the whole mass of the rock. Nor is there cause for holding the view put forth by M. Desnoyers[32] or M. Dupont,[33] that they are the result of the passage of hydrothermal waters. The causes at present at work, operating through long periods of time, offer a reasonable explanation of their existence in every limestone district; and those which are no longer watercourses can generally be proved to have been formerly traversed by running water, by the silt, sand, and rounded pebbles which they contain. In their case, either the drainage of the district has been changed by the upheaval or depression of the rock, or the streams have searched out for themselves a passage at a lower level.

But if caves have been thus excavated, it is obvious that ravines and valleys in limestone districts are due to the operation of the same causes. If, for instance, we refer to [Figures 1] and [6], we shall see that the open valley passes insensibly into a ravine, and that into a cave. The ravine is merely a cave which has lost its roof, and the valley is merely the result of the weathering of the sides of the ravine. There can be no manner of doubt but that, in both these cases, the ravine is gradually encroaching on the cave, and the valley on the ravine; and if the strata be exposed to atmospheric agencies long enough, the valley of the Axe will extend as far as Priddy ([Fig. 1]), and that of Dalebeck to the watershed above the Gatekirk cave ([Fig. 6]).

In the same manner the lofty precipice of Malham Cove, near Settle, in Yorkshire ([Fig. 8]), is slowly falling away and uncovering the subterranean course of the Aire. Eventually the ravine thus formed will extend as far as Malham Tarn, and the Aire flow exposed to the light of day from its source to the sea.[34]

Fig. 8.—Diagram of Source of the Aire at Malham.

This view is applicable to many if not to all ravines and valleys in calcareous rocks, such as the Pass at Cheddar, or the gorge of the Avon at Clifton, and those of Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and Wales. And since the agents by which the work is done are universal, and calcareous rock for the most part of the same chemical composition, the results are the same, and the calcareous scenery everywhere of the same type. In the lapse of past time, so enormous as to be incapable of being grasped by the human intellect, these agents are fully capable of producing the deepest ravines, the widest valleys, and the largest caves.

This view of the relation of caves to ravines was so strongly held by M. Desnoyers, that he terms the latter “cavernes à ciel ouvert.” I arrived independently at the same conclusion after the study of the scenery of limestone for many years.

In many cases, however, in northern latitudes and in high altitudes, the ravine or valley so formed has been subsequently widened and deepened by glacial action. That, for instance, of Chapel-en-le-Dale bears unmistakeable evidence of the former flow of a glacier, in the roches moutonnées and travelled blocks that it contains. To this is due the flowing contour and even slope of its lower portion.

The pot-holes and “cirques” in calcareous rocks with no outlet at the surface, may also be accounted for by the operation of the same causes as those which have produced caves. Each represents the weak point towards which the rainfall has converged, caused very generally by the intersection of the joints. This has gradually been widened out, because the upper portions of the rock would be the first to seize the atoms of carbonic acid, and thus be dissolved more quickly than the lower portions. Hence the funnel shape which they generally assume, and which can be studied equally in the compact limestone or in the soft upper chalk. They are to be seen on a small scale also in all limestone “pavements.” Sometimes, however, the first chance which the upper portions of the funnels have of being eroded by the acidulated water, is more than counter-balanced by the increased quantity converging at the bottom, and the funnel ends in a vertical shaft. If the area in the rock thus excavated be sufficiently large to allow of the development of a current of water, the mechanical action of the fragments swept along its course will have an important share in the work, as we have seen to be the case in Helln Pot.

Caves not generally found in Line of Faults.

In some few cases the lines of weakness which have been worn into caves, pot-holes, ravines, and valleys, may have been produced, as M. Desnoyers believes, by subterranean movements of elevation and depression; but in all those which I have investigated the faults do not determine the direction of the caverns. The mountain limestone of Castleton, in Derbyshire, offers an example of caves intersecting faults without any definite relation being traceable between them. The ramifications of the Peak cavern traverse the Speedwell Mine nearly at right angles, and the water flowing through it has been traced, Mr. Pennington informs me, to a swallow-hole near Chapel-en-le-Frith, running across two, if not three faults, which are laid down in the geological map. As a general rule caverns are as little affected by disturbance of the rock as ravines and valleys which have been formed in the main irrespective of the lines of fault.

M. Desnoyers points out the close analogy between caverns and mineral veins, and infers that both are due to the same causes. This, undoubtedly, exists in that class of veins which are known to miners as “pipe” and “flat veins;” and there is clear proof, in the majority of cases, that the cavities in which the minerals occur have been formed by the action of running water, and have subsequently been more or less filled with their mineral contents; and these have been deposited on the sides of the cavity by the same “incretionary[35]” action, as that by which dripstone is now being formed in the present caves from the solution of carbonate of lime. Such veins present every conceivable form of irregularity, and frequently contain silt, sand, and gravel, which have been left behind by their streams, and their history is identical with that of the caverns.

It is not so, however, with the second class of veins, the “rake,” “right running,” and “cross courses,” as the miners term them, or those which occupy lines of fault. The fissures which contain the ore are proved very frequently, by their scratched and grooved sides, and polished surfaces or slicken-sides, to have been the result of subterranean movements by which the rock has been broken by mechanical force. They have been subsequently modified, in various ways, by the passage of water, and filled with minerals, in the same manner as the preceding class. With this exception they present no analogy to the caverns, with which they contrast strongly in their rectilinear direction, as well as in their purely mechanical origin.

The various Ages of Caves.

It is very probable that caves were formed in calcareous rocks from the time that they were raised to the level of the sea, since they abound in the Coral Islands. “Caverns,” writes Prof. Dana,[36] “are still more remarkable on the Island of Atiu, on which the coral-reef stands at about the same height above the sea as on Oahu. The Rev. John Williams states—that there are seven or eight of large extent on the Island of Tuto; one he entered by a descent of twenty feet, and wandered a mile in one only of its branches, without finding an end to ‘its interminable windings.’ He says—‘Innumerable openings presented themselves on all sides as we passed along, many of which appeared to be equal in height, beauty, and extent to the one we were following. The roof, a stratum of coral-rock fifteen feet thick, was supported by massy and superb stalactitic columns, besides being thickly hung with stalactites from an inch to many feet in length. Some of these pendants were just ready to unite themselves to the floor, or to a stalagmitic column rising from it. Many chambers were passed through whose fret-work ceilings and columns of stalactites sparkled brilliantly, amid the darkness, with the reflected light of our torches. The effect was produced not so much by single objects, or groups of them, as by the amplitude, the depth, and the complications of this subterranean world.’”

Calcareous rocks might, therefore, be expected to contain fissures and caves of various ages. In the Mendip Hills they have been proved by Mr. Charles Moore to contain fossils of Rhætic age, the characteristic dog-fishes, Acrodus minimus, and Hybodus reticulatus, the elegant sculptured Ganoid fish, Gryrolepis tenuistriatus, and the tiny marsupials, Microlestes and its allies. This singular association of terrestrial with marine creatures is due to the fact, that while that area was being slowly depressed beneath the Rhætic and Liassic seas, the remains were mingled together on the coast-line, and washed into the crevices and holes in the rock.

The older caves and fissures have very generally been blocked up by accumulations of calc-spar or other minerals, and they are arranged on a plan altogether independent of the existing systems of drainage.

It is a singular fact that no fissures or caves should, with the above exception, contain the remains of animals of a date before the Pleistocene age. There can be but little doubt that they were used as places of shelter in all ages, and they must have entombed the remains of the animals that fell into them, or were swept into them by the streams. Caves there must have been long before, and the Eocene Palæotheres, and Anoplotheres met their death in the open pit-falls, just as the sheep and cattle do at the present time. The Hyænodon of the Meiocene had, probably, the same cave-haunting tastes as his descendant, the living Hyæna, and the marsupials of the Mesozoic age might be expected to be preserved in caves, like the fossil marsupials of Australia. The chances of preservation of the remains when once cemented into a fine breccia, or sealed down with a crystalline covering of stalagmite, are very nearly the same as those under which the Pleistocene animals have been handed down to us. The only reasonable explanation of the non-discovery of such remains seems to be, that the ancient suites of caves and fissures containing them, and for the most part near the then surface of the rock, have been completely swept away by denudation, while the present caverns were either then not excavated or inaccessible.

Such an hypothesis will explain the fact that the no ossiferous caverns are older than the Pleistocene age, not merely in Europe, but in North and South America, Australia, and New Zealand. The effect of denudation in rendering the geological record imperfect, may be gathered from the estimate, which Mr. Prestwich has formed, of the amount of rock removed from the crests of the Mendips and the Ardennes, which is in the one case a thickness “of two miles and more,” and in the other as much as “three or four miles.”[37] Under these conditions we could not expect to find a series of bone caves reaching far back into the remote geological past, since the caves and their contents would inevitably be destroyed.

The Filling up of Caves.

We must now consider the condition under which caves become filled up with various deposits. If the velocity of the stream in a water-cave be lessened, the silt, sand, or pebbles it was hurrying along will be dropped, and may ultimately block up the entire watercourse. In bringing this to pass, however, the carbonate of lime in the water plays a most important part. If the excess of carbonic acid by which it is held in solution be lost by evaporation, it immediately reassumes its crystalline form, and shoots over the surface of the pool like plates of ice, or is deposited in loose botryoidal masses at their sides and on their bottoms; and, since the atmospheric water very generally percolates through the crannies in the rock, the sides and roof of the channel, above the level of the water, are adorned with a stony drapery of every conceivable shape. The rate at which this accumulation takes place depends upon the free access of air necessary for evaporation, and is therefore variable,—as in the case of the Ingleborough cave. In all the caves which I have examined there is a free current of air. If a water-channel becomes blocked up by either or both these causes, the joints and fissures in the rock offer an outlet to the drainage, more or less free, at a lower level, as in the Ingleborough cave, Poole’s cave, near Buxton, and many others. Sometimes, however, owing to the increased rain-fall, or to the obstruction of the lower channels, the water re-excavates the old passages, as we shall see to have been the case with the famous caverns of Kent’s Hole and Brixham. In the summer of 1872, a sudden rain-fall not merely opened out for itself a new passage into a swallow-hole close to Gaping Gill, on the flanks of Ingleborough, but forced its way out through the old entrance of the Ingleborough cave, breaking up the calcareous breccia, and removing the large stones in its course. A cave obviously may become dry, either by the drainage passing along a lower level, or by the elevation of the district by subterranean energy. After it has been forsaken by the stream, the particles brought down by the atmospheric water percolating through the joints, tend to fill it up on the surface, and these may be either of clay, loam, or sand.

These actions may be studied in this country in the well-known caves of Ingleborough, Buxton, Cheddar, Wookey Hole, and a great many others in Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Durham, Cumberland, and Wales.

The Cave of Caldy.

Fig. 9.—A View in the Fairy Chamber, Caldy.

Fig. 10.—Stalagmites in the Fairy Chamber, Caldy.

Fig. 11.—The Fairy Chamber, Caldy.

Among the most beautiful stalactite caverns in this country is that on the island of Caldy, immediately opposite to Tenby in Pembrokeshire, discovered some years ago in the limestone cliff, and explored by Mr. Ayshford Sanford and the Rev. H. H. Winwood, in 1866, and subsequently by the writer in 1871 and 1872. On creeping through a narrow entrance with an outlook to the sea on a precipitous side of a quarry, a passage leads to a chamber of considerable horizontal extent, the bottom being covered with silt, on which stand pedestals of dripstone from an inch to two feet in length, each rising from a thin calcareous crust which does not altogether conceal the silt below. From it a low entrance leads into a fairy-like chamber, the floor consisting of a rich red, crystalline pavement, perfectly horizontal, and studded here and there with round bosses ([Figs. 9], [10], [11]), either red or snow-white. From the roof hang stalactites offering the same beautiful contrast of colours, forming a delicate canopy of tassels, or passing downwards to the floor and constituting slender shafts about three feet long, and about the diameter of straws. Each of these is hollow, translucent, and more or less traversed by water, and in some places each stood next its fellow, almost as close as the straws in a cornfield. Sometimes the shaft stands on a cone ([Fig. 11]) of dripstone, more or less raised above the floor. Small pools of water occupy hollows in the pavement, each lined with glittering crystals of calcite ([Fig. 12]), which are slowly shooting over the surface, and converting some of the open hollows into bottle-shaped cavities ([Fig. 13]). Their sides and bottoms are covered with a crystalline growth of singular beauty, of which an idea may be formed by [woodcut 14], which represents the edge. Where the drip happened to fall into a shallow pool, it gradually built up for itself a cone, on the lower portion of which the varying water-level is marked by horizontal rings of crystals ([Fig. 15]), and the normal waterline by the upper horizontal plate. Sometimes these were united to the roof by a slender straw-shaft. In [Figure 11] the original shaft has been broken away, and as the direction of the drip has slightly shifted, a new one gradually descended, until finally it became cemented to the side of the cone.

Fig. 12.—Pools in Fairy Chamber.

Fig. 13.—Pool in Fairy Chamber.

Fig. 14.—Edge of Pool in Fairy Chamber.

Fig. 15.—Cone with Straw-column.

The history of these structures is very evident. The straw-like stalactites were formed by the evaporation of the carbonic acid from the surface of each drop of water, as it accumulated in one spot, and the consequent deposit of carbonate of lime around its circumference. It could not be formed in the centre, because of the continual movement of the successive drops in falling. By a circumferential growth of this kind a small crystal tube, of the diameter of a drop, is slowly developed, which continues to lengthen until the result is one of the straw-columns, with a hole in the centre for the passage of the water, which cannot readily part with its carbonic acid till it arrives at the end of the tube. Sometimes the hole has been subsequently blocked up by calc-spar, or the general surface been covered over with successive layers, until it becomes a mass of considerable diameter. If the drop fell into a deep pool, the straw-column was continued down to the water-line; if in shallow water, or on the floor, a pedestal was built up, as is represented in the preceding figures. The crystallization going on in the pools is greater at the surface than below, because of the greater evaporation, and consequently the stalagmitic film is gradually extending over it on every side from the edges ([Figs. 12], [13]).

As I broke my way into some of the unexplored recesses, through the thickly planted straw-shafts, and scene after scene of fairy beauty, unsullied by man, opened upon my eyes, the ringing of the fragments on the crystalline floor that accompanied almost every movement made me feel an intruder, and sorry for the destruction.

In some places, where the drip was continuous, and the calcareous basin which it had built up for itself shallow, small spherical bodies of calcite were so beautifully polished by friction in the agitated water, that they deserve the name of cave-pearls from their lustre. In [Fig. 16] I have represented a tiny basin with its pearly contents. Where the drip had ceased to be continuous each of these formed a nucleus for the deposit of calcite crystals, by which they were united to the bottom of the basin.

Fig. 16.—Basin containing Cave-pearls.

Fig. 17.—Fungoid Structures, magnified.

In the principal chamber in the cave, which is very nearly free from drip, the upper surfaces of the stones and stalagmites on the floor are covered with a peculiar fungoid-like deposit of calcite, consisting of rounded bosses, attached to the general surface by a pedicle (see [Figs. 17], [18]) sometimes not much thicker than a hair. They stood close together at various levels, following the inequalities of the surface of attachment, and being on an average about 0·2 inch long. Several microscopical sections ([Fig. 17]) showed that each was formed originally on a slight elevation of the general surface, which would cause a greater evaporation of water than the surrounding portions, and therefore be covered with a greater deposit of calcite. This process would go on until the height was reached to which the water slowly passing over the general surface would no longer rise. Hence the remarkable uniformity of the height of the bosses. The evaporation is greater at the point furthest removed from the general surface, and therefore the apex is larger than the base (see [Fig. 17]). In [Figure 18] they stand as thickly together as trees in a virgin forest, and are developed in greatest vigour where the small eminences cause a greater evaporation than the small depressions, and are stoutest and strongest at the free edges. Some of the pedicles, as in the figure, present traces of erosion, the outer layers having been eaten away by acid-laden water.

Some of these singular little bosses may have been moulded on minute fungi, such as those in the cave of Ingleborough, but their presence is not revealed by the microscope.

The Black-rock Cave, near Tenby.

Fig. 18.—Fungoid Structure, Black-rock Cave.

I met with this remarkable kind of calcareous deposition in a second cave in the neighbourhood of Tenby. When examining the Black-rock quarries in 1871, the workmen pointed out a small opening which they believed to be the entrance of a cave, but which was too small for them to enter. By knocking off, however, a few sharp angles, I got into a small chamber about five feet high, with sides, roof, and bottom covered with massive dripstone. A few loose stones rested on the bottom. The whole surface, even including the stones upon the floor, one of which is figured ([Fig. 18]), was so completely covered with these peculiar fungoid bodies, that it was impossible to move without destroying hundreds of them. All were about the same height, 0·2 inches, snow-white, or of a rich reddish brown, and conformed to the unequal surface on which they stood. It is quite impossible to describe the effect of a whole chamber bristling with these peculiar structures. The only author by whom they are mentioned, Mr. John Beaumont—who described the caves of Mendip in 1680, considered them to be veritable plants of stone.[38] The beautiful forms assumed by the dripstone in the caves of Caldy and Black-rock are by no means uncommon, but I have never met with them anywhere else in such perfection. They may be studied in all stalactitic caverns.

Great Quantity of Carbonate of Lime dissolved by Atmospheric Water.

A small portion only of the carbonate of lime is deposited as tufa or dripstone in the neighbourhood of the rock from which it has been derived, as compared with that carried by the streams into the rivers, and the rivers into the sea. An idea of this quantity may be formed from the calculation of the solid matter conveyed down by the Thames, given by Mr. Prestwich in his Presidential Address to the Geological Society in 1871, p. lxvii.

“Taking the mean daily discharge of the Thames at Kingston at 1,250,000,000 gallons, and the salts in solution at nineteen grains per gallon, the mean quantity of dissolved mineral matter there carried down by the Thames every twenty-four hours is equal to 3,364,286 lbs., or 150 tons, which is equal to 548,230 tons in the year. Of this daily quantity about two-thirds, or say 1,000 tons, consist of carbonate of lime and 238 tons of sulphate of lime, while limited proportions of carbonate of magnesia, chlorides of sodium and potassium, sulphates of soda and potash, silica and traces of iron, alumina, and phosphates, constitute the rest. If we refer a small portion of the carbonates and the sulphates and chlorides chiefly to the impermeable argillaceous formations washed by the rain-water, we shall still have at least ten grains per gallon of carbonate of lime, due to the chalk, upper greensand, oolitic strata, and marlstone, the superficial area of which, in the Thames basin above Kingston, is estimated by Mr. Harrison at 2,072 square miles. Therefore the quantity of carbonate of lime carried away from this area by the Thames is equal to 797 tons daily, or 290,905 tons annually, which gives 140 tons removed yearly from each square mile; or, extending the calculation to a century, we have a total removal of 29,090,500 tons, or of 14,000 tons from each square mile of surface. Taking a ton of chalk, as a mean, as equal to fifteen cubic feet, this is equal to the removal of 210,000 cubic feet per century for each square mile, or of 9/100 of an inch from the whole surface in the course of a century, so that in the course of 13,200 years a quantity equal to a thickness of about one foot would be removed from our chalk and oolitic districts.”

This destructive action, operating through long periods of time, destroys not merely the general surface of the limestone, but, where it is localized by the convergence of water, is capable of excavating the deepest gorges and the longest caves. The quantity of material carried away in solution is a measure of the power of carbonic acid in the general work of denudation.

The Circulation of Carbonate of Lime.

The circulation of carbonate of lime in nature presents us with a never-ending cycle of change. It is conveyed into the sea to be built up into the tissues of the animal and vegetable inhabitants. It appears in the gorgeous corallines, nullipores, calcareous sea-weeds, sea-shells, and in the armour of crustaceans. In the tissues of the coral-zoophytes it assumes the form of stony groves, of which each tree is a colony of animals, and in the wave-defying reef it reverts to its original state of limestone. Or, again, it is seized upon by tiny masses of structureless protoplasm, and fashioned into chambers of endless variety and of infinite beauty, and accumulated at the bottom of the deeper seas, forming a deposit analogous to our chalk. In the revolution of ages the bottom of the sea becomes dry land, the calcareous débris of animal and vegetable life is more or less compacted together by pressure and by the infiltration of acid-laden rain-water, and appears as limestone of various hardness and constitution. Then the destruction begins again, and caves, pot-holes, and ravines are again carved out of the solid rock.

The Temperature of Caves.

The air in caves is generally of the same temperature as the mean annual temperature of the district in which they occur, and therefore cold in summer and warm in winter. This would be a sufficient reason why they should be chosen by uncivilized peoples as habitations.

The very remarkable glacières, or caves containing ice instead of water, in the Jura, Pyrenees, in Teneriffe, Iceland, and other districts of high altitude and low temperature, in which the temperature even in summer does not rise much above freezing-point, may be explained by the theory advanced independently by De Luc and the Rev. G. F. Browne. “The heavy cold air of winter,” writes the latter, “sinks down into the glacières, and the lighter, warm air of summer cannot on ordinary principles dislodge it, so that heat is very slowly spread in the caves; and even when some amount of heat does reach the ice, the latter melts but slowly, since a kilogramme of ice absorbs 79° C. of heat in melting; and thus when ice is once formed, it becomes a material guarantee for the permanence of cold in the cave. For this explanation to hold good it is necessary that the level at which the ice is found should be below the level of the entrance to the cave; otherwise the mere weight of the cold air would cause it to leave its prison as soon as the spring warmth arrived.” It is also necessary that the cave should be protected from direct radiation and from the action of wind. These conditions are satisfied by all the glacières explored by Mr. Browne.[39] The apparent anomaly that one only out of a group of caves exposed to the same temperatures should be a glacière, may be explained by the fact that these conditions are found in combination but rarely, and if one were absent there would be no accumulation of perpetual ice. It is very probable that the store of cold laid up in these caves, as in an ice-house, has been ultimately derived from the great refrigeration of climate in Europe in the Glacial Period.

Conclusion.

In this chapter we have examined the physical history of caves, their formation, and their relation to pot-holes, cirques, and ravines; and we have seen that they are not the result of subterranean disturbance, but of the mechanical action of rain-water and the chemical action of carbonic acid, both operating from above. We have seen that cave-hunting is not merely an adventurous amusement, but also a quest that brings us into a great laboratory, so to speak, in which we can see the natural agents at work that have carved out the valleys and gorges, and shaped the hills wherever the calcareous rocks are to be found.

The rest of this treatise will be devoted to the evidence which they offer as to the former inhabitants, both men and animals, of Europe.

CHAPTER III.
HISTORIC CAVES IN BRITAIN.

Definition of Historic Period.—Wild Animals in Britain during the Historic Period.—Animals living under the care of Man.—Classificatory value of Historic Animals.—The Victoria Cave, Settle, Yorkshire.—History of Discovery.—The Romano-Celtic or Brit-Welsh Stratum.—The Bones of the Animals.—Miscellaneous Articles.—The Coins.—The Jewelry, and its Relation to Irish Art.—Similar Remains in other Caves in Yorkshire.—These Caves used as Places of Refuge.—The evidence of History as to Date.—Britain under the Romans.—The Inroads of the Picts and Scots.—The English Conquest.—The Neolithic Stratum.—The approximate Date of the Neolithic Occupation.—The Grey Clays.—The Pleistocene Occupation by the Hyænas.—The probable Preglacial Age of the Pleistocene Stratum.—The Kirkhead Cave.—Poole’s Cave, near Buxton.—Thor’s Cave, near Ashbourne.—Historic value of Brit-Welsh Group of Caves.—Principal Animals and Articles.—The use of Horse-flesh.—The Cave of Long-berry Bank.

Definition of Historic Period.

In the preceding chapter the origin of caves has been discussed, as well as their relation to the physical geography of the districts in which they are found. We must now pass on to the biological division of the subject, which relates to the animals that they contain and the inferences that may be drawn from their occurrence. The caves will be divided into historic, prehistoric, and pleistocene, according to the principles laid down in the [first] chapter.

It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to define with precision the point where legend ends and history begins; but the line may be drawn with convenience at the first beginning of a connected and continuous narrative, rather than at the first isolated notice of a country. If we accept this definition, the historic period in Great Britain cannot be extended further back than the temporary invasion of Julius Cæsar, B.C. 55, even if so far, since of the interval that elapsed between that event and the subjugation under Claudius, in the year A.D. 43, we know scarcely anything. Of the events which happened in this country before Cæsar’s invasion there is no documentary evidence, although, by the modern method of scientific research, we are able to extend the narrative away from the borders of history far back into the archæological and geological past.

Wild Animals in Britain during the Historic Period.

During the historic period great changes have taken place in the animals inhabiting Great Britain. The wild animals have been diminished in number, and their area of occupation has been narrowed by the increase of population and the improvement in weapons of destruction. The brown bear, inhabiting Britain during the time of the Roman occupation, was extirpated probably before the tenth century. The current belief that it was destroyed in Scotland by the founder of the Gordon family in 1057 is unsupported by any documentary evidence which I have been able to discover; the crest of the Gordons, which is supposed to have been derived from the last of those animals slain in the island, consisting of three boars’, not bears’, heads. The last wolf is said to have been destroyed in Scotland in 1680, while in Ireland the animal lingered thirty years later to be a terror to the defenceless beggars. It was deemed worthy of a special decree for its destruction in the reign of Edward I. The wild boar was extinct before the reign of Charles I., while the beaver, which was hunted for its fur on the banks of the Teivi in Cardiganshire during the time of the first Crusade, became extinct shortly afterwards. The stag was so abundant in the south of England as recently as the reign of Queen Anne, that she saw a herd of no less than five hundred between London and Portsmouth. At present the animal lives only in a half-wild condition, in the forest of Exmoor and the Highlands of Scotland; while the roedeer is now only found wild in Scotland, although it formerly ranged throughout the length and breadth of the country.

The reindeer is proved to have been living in Caithness as late as the year 1159, by a passage in the Orkneyinga Saga.

The common rat, Mus decumanus, is the only wild or semi-wild animal that has migrated into this country during the historic period contrary to the will of man. In 1727 it (Pallas, Glires) had begun to invade Southern Russia from the regions of Persia and the Caspian Sea. Thence it swiftly spread over Asia Minor, and while it was advancing to the west overland, it was carried by ships to nearly all the ports in the world. It arrived in Britain certainly before the year 1730, and has since nearly exterminated the black indigenous species. It is the only wild animal which is known to have invaded Europe since the pleistocene age, with the exception, perhaps, of the true elk.

Animals living under the care of Man.

The fallow-deer, indigenous in the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, was probably introduced by the Romans, since its remains occur in refuse-heaps of Roman age, such as that of London Wall, and of Colchester, while it has not been met with in older deposits. To them, also, we probably owe the introduction of the pheasant, which was sufficiently abundant in the neighbourhood of London in the time of Harold to be mentioned as one of the articles of food eaten on feast-days by the households of the Canons at Waltham Abbey in 1059. The domestic fowl has left the first traces of its presence in this country in the Roman refuse-heaps, although it was known to the Belgæ, according to the testimony of Cæsar, before the first Roman invasion.

The earliest mention of the domestic cat in this country is to be found in the laws of Howel Dha,[40] that were probably codified at the end of the tenth or in the eleventh century, although many of the enactments may be of a much earlier date. The king’s cat is assessed at eightpence, or twice as much as that belonging to any subject. The ass[41] was certainly known in Britain in the days of Æthelred (A.D. 866–871), when, according to Professor Bell, its price was fixed at the large sum of twelve shillings. The larger breed of cattle represented by the Chillingham ox, and descended from the great Urus, first appears in this country about the time of the English invasion. It gradually spread over those districts conquered by the English, until the small aboriginal dark-coloured, short-horn Bos longifrons, which was the only domestic breed in the prehistoric and Roman times, is now only to be met with in the hill country of Wales and of Scotland, in which the Brit-Welsh or Romano-Celtic inhabitants still survive.

Classificatory value of Historic Animals.

The principal changes in the fauna of Great Britain during the historic age are the extinction of the bear, wolf, beaver, reindeer, and wild boar, and the introduction of the domestic fowl, the pheasant, fallow-deer, ass, the domestic cat, the larger breed of oxen, and the common rat; and as this took place at different times, it is obvious that these animals enable us to ascertain the approximate date of the deposit in which their remains happen to occur. And for this purpose the following table[42] may be consulted:—

Some or other of these animals are met with in the peat-bogs and alluvia, and in caves, but far more abundantly in the refuse-heaps left behind by man, by whom they have here been used either for service or for food.

The disappearance of certain wild species, from the areas in which they lived on the continent, in historic times, has not been ascertained so accurately as in this country, and many animals, which have become extinct in our restricted and highly-cultivated island, are still to be found in the continental forests, morasses, and mountains. The brown bear is still to be met with in the Pyrenees, the Vosges, and in the wilder and more inaccessible portions of northern, middle, and southern Europe. The wolf still survives in France, and during the late German war preyed upon the slain after some of the battles. It, as well as the wild boar, ranges throughout the uncultivated regions of the continent. The beaver still lives in the waters of the Rhone, as well as in the rivers of Lithuania and of Scandinavia, and the reindeer, now restricted to the regions north of a line passing east and west through the Baltic, extended further south, in sufficient numbers to be remarked by Cæsar, among the more noteworthy animals living in the great Hercynian forest, which overshadowed northern Germany in his days. This forest also afforded shelter to the true elk and the bison, both of which still live in Lithuania, as well as to the Urus, which was hunted by Charles the Great, near Aachen, and probably became extinct in the fifteenth or sixteenth century. The lion inhabited the mountains of southern Thrace in the days of Herodotus and of Aristotle, and became extinct in Europe between 330 B.C. and the days of Dio Chrysostom Rhetor (A.D. 100), who expressly says that there were no lions in Greece in his time. The panther also inhabited the same district when Xenophon wrote his “Treatise on Hunting.”

The fallow-deer was believed by the late Professor Edouard Lartet to have been introduced into France by the Romans. On a visit, however, to Paris in September 1873, Professor Gervais called my attention to an antler of the animal in the Jardin des Plantes, said to have been found in a refuse-heap along with axes of polished stone. It must therefore have lived in France in the Neolithic age, if it were obtained from an undisturbed deposit. It gradually spread into Germany and Switzerland, until in the eleventh century it was sufficiently abundant to be mentioned among the articles of food in a metrical grace of the monks of St. Gall.

“Imbellem damam faciat benedictio summam.”[43]

The domestic fowl is to be recognized on Gallic coins before the Roman invasion, and therefore was probably known at the very dawn of Gallic history. The larger breed of oxen, descended from the Urus type, has been known in France, Germany, Lombardy, Scandinavia, and Switzerland, in the remote division of the prehistoric age known as the Neolithic.[44] The buffalo, on the other hand, of the Roman Campagna, was introduced into Italy, according to Paulus Diaconus, in the year 596, and the domestic cat,[45] known to the Greeks from their intercourse with Egypt, became familiar to the eyes of the inhabitants of Rome and Constantinople as early as the fourth century after Christ.

It is evident from the survival of the wolf, the bear, beaver, reindeer, and the wild boar on the continent at the present time, that the chronological table which I have constructed for Britain is inapplicable to Europe in general. In the present state of our knowledge of the varying ranges of the animals, it seems impossible to form any similar scheme.

The historic caves are characterized by the presence of some of these animals, as well as of coins and pottery, and other articles by which the date of their occupation may be ascertained.

The Victoria Cave, Settle, Yorkshire.

The most important historic cave in this country is that discovered by Mr. Joseph Jackson, near Settle, in Yorkshire, on the coronation day of Queen Victoria, in 1838, and which has therefore been called the Victoria Cave. It runs horizontally into the precipitous side of a lonely ravine known as King’s Scar ([Fig. 19]), at a height of about 1,450 feet above the sea, according to Mr. Tiddeman, and it consists of three large ill-defined chambers filled with débris nearly up to the roof.

Fig. 19.—View of King’s Scar, Settle, showing the entrances of the Victoria and Albert Caves (from a photograph). A, B, Victoria; C, Albert.

The entrances face to the south-west, and open at the bottom of an overhanging cliff at the point where a scree, or accumulation of fragments from the cliff above, gradually slopes down to the bottom of the valley, about one hundred feet below. When Mr. Jackson made his discovery, he passed inwards through a small entrance,[46] and was rewarded by finding in the earth on the floor a number of Roman coins, together with ornaments and implements of bronze, and some brooches of singular taste and beauty, with implements of bone, and large quantities of broken bones and fragments of pottery. The collection was very miscellaneous; for besides iron spear-heads, nails, daggers, spoon-brooches of bone, spindle-whorls, beads of amber and of glass, there were bronze brooches, finger-rings, armlets, bracelets, buckles, and studs. All were lying pêle-mêle together, side by side with the broken bones of the animals, and the whole set of remains, with the exception of some of the brooches, was of the kind which is usually met with in the neighbourhood of Roman camps, cities, and villas which have been sacked.

The fragments of Samian ware and Roman pottery scattered through the mass, as well as coins of Trajan and Constantine, proved further, that the cave had been inhabited after the Roman invasion, and not earlier than the middle of the third century; and the rude imitations of Roman coins were, according to Mr. Roach Smith,[47] probably in circulation for some centuries after the departure of the Romans from Britain.—“And although some of these remains are indicative of sepulture, yet from the evidence furnished there appears no positive proof of their having formed part of funereal deposits. A more satisfactory conclusion seems to arise in considering that these caves (i.e. the group) may have been used as places of refuge by the Romanized Britons during the troublous times at and after the close of the fourth century.” This conclusion we shall see fully borne out by the evidence subsequently obtained. Mr. Jackson gives the following account of the discovery:—

“The entrance was nearly filled up with rubbish, and overgrown with nettles. After removing these obstructions, I was obliged to lie down at full length to get in. The first appearance that struck me on entering was the large quantity of clay and earth, which seemed as if washed in from without, and presented to the view round pieces like balls of different sizes. Of this clay there must be several hundred waggon loads, but abounding more in the first than in the branch caves. In some parts a stalagmitic crust has formed, mixed with bones, broken pots, &c. It was on this crust I found the principal part of the coins, the other articles being mostly imbedded in the clay. In the other caves very little has been found. When we get through the clay, which is very stiff and deep, we generally find the rock covered with bones, all broken and presenting the appearance of having been gnawed. The entrance into the inner cave has been walled up at the sides. In the inside were several large stones lying near the hole, any one of which would have completely blocked it up by merely turning the stone over. I pulled the wall down, and the aperture was now about a yard wide, and two feet high. On digging up the clay at about nine or ten inches deep, I found the original floor; it was hard and gravelly, and strewed with bones, broken pots, and other objects. The roof of the cave was beautifully hung with stalactites in various fantastic forms and as white as snow.”[48]

The interest in these discoveries led Mr. Denny, Mr. Farrer, and other gentlemen to examine the superficial stratum from time to time, until, in 1870, Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, Mr. Walter Morrison, Mr. Birkbeck, and other gentlemen in the neighbourhood formed a committee for the investigation of the contents of the cave, which had been placed at their disposal by the courtesy of the owner, the late Mr. Stackhouse. They were aided by the assistance of Sir C. Lyell, Sir. J. Lubbock, and Mr. Darwin, Professor Phillips, Mr. Franks, and others, and by a grant obtained from the British Association, and have carried on the work since that time with comparatively little interruption. Mr. Jackson, the original discoverer, superintended the workmen; while I identified the works of art and the mammalian remains that were discovered, and drew up for the committee the reports brought before the British Association in 1870, 1871, and 1872, and before the Anthropological Institute in 1871. Mr. Tiddeman also contributed a report on the physical history of the cave, which is printed in the British Association Report for 1872, and subsequently in the Geological Magazine, January 1873.[49]

The Romano-Celtic or Brit-Welsh Stratum.