bury, Devon, and were explored by Mr. J. L. Widger, with results recorded by the late Mr. J. E. Lee.[1] In them were found numerous mammalian remains, including teeth of rhinoceros, hyæna, and bear, and several worked flints. One of these, described as a "Flint Implement of the older type,"[2] was found beneath two thick stalagmite floors. Many of the implements from these caves are now in the British Museum.
In the Happaway Cavern,[3] Torquay, teeth of the same mammals were found, together with human bones and apparently a flint flake as well as many splinters of flint. Human remains were also found with those of hyæna in a cave at Cattedown,[4] Plymouth.
THE WOOKEY HYÆNA DEN.
The so-called Hyæna Den at Wookey Hole, near Wells, Somerset, has been explored at different times between 1859 and 1863 by Prof. Boyd Hawkins, F.R.S., assisted by the Rev. J. Williamson, F.G.S., Mr. James Parker, F.G.S., and Mr. Henry Willett, F.G.S., and accounts of the exploration have been published in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society.[5]
The cave is situated no great distance from the mouth of the large and well-known cavern of Wookey Hole, and pierces the Dolomitic Conglomerate. It was first discovered about the year 1849, in cutting a mill-race along the edge of the rock, and consists of a principal chamber, or antrum, connected with a bifurcated tunnel narrowing as it recedes from the chamber, and with one branch terminating in a vertical passage. At the time of the discovery, both the chamber and the passage were for the greater part filled with red earth, stones, and animal remains quite up to the roof, and in other parts to within a few inches of it. In a few places only was there any deposit of stalagmite. In the antrum, both the upper and lower part of the red earth which filled the cave contained but few organic remains, though they were abundant towards the middle of the deposit. In part of the passage, however, there was an enormous accumulation of animal remains, forming a bone-bed at the top of the cave-earth. The evidences of human occupation were all found in the principal chamber.
- ↑ Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd S., vol. viii. p. 247.
- ↑ Op. cit., p. 462.
- ↑ Trans. Devon. Assoc., vol. xviii. p. 161.
- ↑ Op. cit., vol. xix. p. 419.
- ↑ Vol. xviii., 1862, p. 115; xix., 1863, 260. See also Dawkins on "The Habits and Conditions of the Two earliest-known Races of Men," Quart. Journ. of Science, 1866, Macmillan's Magazine, Oct. and Dec, 1870, "Cave-hunting," p. 295, and "Early Man in Brit.," p. 193, and Hamy, "Paléont. Humaine," p. 117.
