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NOTES ON RECENT NOTICES OF THE GEOLOGY
AND PALAEONTOLOGY OF DEVONSHIRE.
I
*.
PART
BY
WM.
PMGEILY,
F.R.S.,
F.9.S.
(Read at Teignmouth, July, 1874.)
[Reprinted from the Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the
Advancement of Science, Literature, and Art. 1874.]
��NOTES ON RECENT NOTICES OF THE GEOLOGY
AND PALÆONTOLOGY OF DEVONSHIRE.
PART I.
BY WM. PENGELLY, F.R.S., F.G.S.
(Read, at Teignmouth, July, 1874.)
[Reprinted from the Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the
Advancement of Science, Literature, and Art. JS74-]
A slight experience suffices to show how very difficult it is
to keep errors out of printed matter; and when it is re
membered that, to say nothing of imperfections in the original
manuscript, such matter has to pass through the hands of
transcribers and compositors, who, though conscientious and
anxious to be correct, lay no claim to infallibility, the fact,
instead of causing any surprise, should teach us the great
lesson that verification is necessary. Indeed, were it not that
it might perhaps be open to the charge of cynical affectation,
it might be prudent to inscribe “With a grain of salt” on
the title-page of every book in our libraries.
As it seems desirable that our members should record and
correct in our Transactions, from time to time, such errors
respecting our own county as they have detected in the course
of their reading, 1 have, in this communication, brought
together a few Notes on Recent Notices of the Geology and
Palaeontology of Devonshire.
The following are the topics “ noticed ” in these “ Notes—
1st. The Devonian Rocks of Mudstone and Slapton, South
Devon.
2nd. Fossil Fish in the Devonian Rocks of Devonshire.
3rd. Devonian Trilobites of Devon and Cornwall.
4th. The Source of the White Clays of Bovey Heathfield,
Devon.
5th. The Granite Boulder of Saunton, Barnstaple Bay.
6th. Brixham Cavern.
7th. Keut’s Cavern.
8th. The Submerged Forests of Torbay.
A
�2
NOTES ON RECENT NOTICES OF THE
I. THE DEVONIAN ROCKS OF MUDSTONE AND SLAPTON, SOUTH
DEVON.
The Rev. W. S. Symonds’s “Records of the Rocks” con
tains the following passages respecting the older rocks of
South Devon, on which a few remarks seem called for:—
“Here [Mudstone Bay, immediately west of Berry Head]
he [the geologist] will see a series of Silurian-looking shales
faulted against the Plymouth and Middle Devonian Lime
stones. Mr. Pengelly has found remains of fish in these
faulted rocks............ These rocks cross the river Dart, and run
by Corn worthy westward in an anticlinal axis. I think that if
well examined they would yield fossils, but hitherto hardly
any have been found
*
Again, “ The slates of Slapton. Sands, between Dartmouth
and Start Point, are middle Devonian, and of a green colour.
.... I am not aware that they have yielded any fossils.”!
The points in the passages just quoted, which would fasten
on the attention of the geologist acquainted with the district
are :—1st. The alleged occurrence of a fault at Mudstone Bay.
2nd. The very small number of fossils said to have been
yielded by the beds supposed to be faulted. 3rd. The ques
tion of the occurrence of fossils in the Slapton slates.
1st. Having accompanied Mr. Symonds to Mudstone Bay
in 1868, I was not unprepared for his statement that there is
a fault there, inasmuch as he expressed and maintained that
opinion on the spot. Nevertheless, I was surprised to hear
the statement at the time, and nothing has since occurred
to diminish that feeling. The phenomena which the fine
cliff section presents were interpreted in the following
manner by Messrs. Sedgwick and Murchison, in their paper
“ On the Physical Structure of Devonshire, and on the Sub
divisions and Geological Relations of its older stratified
Deposits, &c.,’ read to the Geological Society of London,
June 14th, 1837J: “The great limestone at the south end of
Torbay, after exhibiting a number of contortions, and spread
ing out into a succession of mural precipices at Berry Head,
is finally (at Mudstone Sands) bent into a great arch which
brings up the lower calcareous slates on which it rests, and
causes the southern flap of the great limestone saddle to dip
under the slate formation which is expanded towards the
south along the shores of Start Bay. The same order of
. * “ K,ol?,rdS °f tllC Rocks-” Bv tbe Kcv' W- S- Symonds, f.g 8., London,
1872; p. 281.
f Ibidt p 295
‘
+ Trans. Geol. boc. ’ bond , 2nd serie©, vol v. part iii. pp. 633-687.
�GEOLOGY AND PALÆONTOLOGY OF DEVONSHIRE.
3
superposition is also indicated at Galmpton Creek on the
eastern shore of the Dart, as well as at intermediate spots
along the southern boundary of the limestone.”*
The same view is expressed by the authors, at p. GG9, in
the description of their “ Section from Berry Head to Start
Point,” Pl. li., fig. 6.
The following passage from his Palœozoic Fossils of Corn
wall, Devon, &c., shows that Professor Phillips interpreted the
Mudstone Section in exactly the same way
“ Mudstone Bay
—Here, between the promontories of Berryhead and Shark
ham Point, an anticlinal axis (its steepest dip being north,
under Berryhead) brings to view the schistose rocks below
the limestone. The horns of the bay being limestone, the
hollow is schist. The series of strata is nearly thus :—
Precisely the same opinion is given by Dr. Harvey B. Holl,
in his paper “ On the Older Bocks of South Devon and East
Cornwall,” | read to the Geological Society of London, April
22, 18G8, in which the following passage occurs:—
“ The great mass of limestone of Berry Head, which
stretches inland to Walton [?Waddeton], and of which the
Yalberton and Stoke Gabriel limestones are but detached
portions, forms an arch, which is depressed in its central
portions between Walton and Fishcombe Point: while its
southern margin is thrown over an anticlinal axis at Mudstone
Sands, and is seen at Sharkham Point and [Higher] Brixham,
dipping under the higher beds on the south.Ӥ
I fully concur in the opinions just quoted, that there is an
anticlinal axis, but not a fault, at Mudstone Bay.
2nd. It may be doubted whether any rocks in South Devon,
with the exception, perhaps, of the limestones quarried near
Newton, have been more thoroughly and frequently examined,
during the last forty years, than those very beds at Mudstone
*
t
and
+
§
Op. cit., p. 652.
“ Figures and Descriptions of the Palmozoric Fossils of Cornwall, Devon,
West Somerset.” By John Phillips, f.r.8., f.g.s, &c., 1841, p. 203.
“Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc.” Lund., vol. xxiv. pp. 400-454.
Op. cit., p. 431.
A 2
�4
NOTES ON RECENT NOTICES OF THE
Bay ; and that the labour has not gone unrewarded every
local collection of fossils will show. In the beds under
notice, Corals are by no means rare; Crinoideal remains,
including those of Gyatliocrinus pinnatv s, Goldf., are abundant;
Pctepora repisteria, G(Ad~ Goryonia ripistcra, is occasionally
met with ; Brachiopoda, now and then, are detected, including
Atliyris conccntrica, V. Buch, in my collection, identified and
figured by Mr. Davidson ; and the beds are famous fortheir
*
Devonian Cephalopoda, of which Cyrtoccras bdellalitcs^XAW.,
and a remarkable nautiloid shell have attracted much atten
tion. Somewhat recently, moreover, as Mr. Symonds remarks,
the remains formerly known as the “ Polperro Sponges ” have
been met with in the same beds— a fact which I placed on
record in 1861.f In 1868 these so called sponges were identi
fied, by Air. Symonds himself, as the remains of fish, and Air.
E. Bay Lankester read to the Geological Society of London,
June 17, 1866, a paper in which he announced that the same
fossils had been found in the Lower Devonian slates of
Aludstone Bay by the late Lieut. AVyatt Edgell also. J
As stated by Messrs. Sedgwick and Alurchison in the
passage quoted above, these Lower Devonian slates extend
from Aludstone Bay to Galmpton Creek, on the left bank of
the Dart; and here too they are fossiliferous, for in June 1861,
I found many small Brachiopods projecting in places from
the edges of the layers of slate, and amongst them Air.
Davidson identified Athyris conccntrica.§
If Dr. H. B. Holl has correctly regarded the slates near
Black Hall on the Avon in South Devon as the westerly
prolongation of the Aludstone beds,|j and of this I have no
doubt, there is a third locality in which they have yielded
fossils, and in considerable numbers. The late Air. J.
Cornish, on whose property the Black Hall slates occur,
made a collection of fossils from them ; and was so good as
to accompany me to the quarry, and to supplement the
specimens I found with several from his own cabinet. Aly
collection contains from this locality the Trilobite Phacops
latifrons, Broun ;5T the Brachiopods, Strophoniena rliomboidalis,
AVahl; Striptorhynchns crcnistria, Phill; Lcptama intcrstrialis,
Phill; and Chonetcs hardrcnsis, Phill;
**
and numerous Cri-*
§
* See “ British Fossil Brachiopoda.” By Thomas Davidson, f.k.s., f.O.s.,
&c , (Pal. Soe.) vol. iii. p. 16, Pl. iii., figs. ¡3, 14.
+ See “The Geoglogist,” 1861, p. 310.
+ See “Quart. Journ. Geol. Soo. Lond.,” 186S, vol. xxiv., pp. 546-7.
§ Op cit. p. 16.
|| Op. cit. Table i., pp. 432-3.
U See “A Monograph on British Trilobites.” By J. W. Salter, a.l.s., f g s.
(I al. Soc.) Part i p 20.
** See Davidson, Op. cit. pp. 76, 85, and 94.
�GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY OF DEVONSHIRE.
.)
noideal stems, some of them of great length and otherwise
of interest.
3rd. By “the slates of Slapton Sands between Dartmouth
and the Start,” spoken of by Mr. Symonds, I understand the
entire series of Devonian beds from Dartmouth harbour to
the commencement of the Metamorphic Schists, some dis
tance north of the Start Point. Mr. AV. Vicary, F.G.S., and I
have examined these rocks with some care, but with very
slender additions to our collections of fossils. Nevertheless
we did find, in October 1864, a few remnants of encrinites
near Torcross, at the southern end of Slapton Sands ; and on
the same day, a small number of corals at the point of land
dividing Bee Sands and Hall Sands, still further south. In
1866 also, we found, at a spot known as Finister or Finisterre,
on the left of the road between Bee Sands and the village of
Beeston, unmistakable, though imperfect, remains of Brachiopoda in a quarry of quartzite, strikingly resembling some of
the constituents of the famous Pebble-bed near Budleigh
Salterton. The best specimens were sent to Mr. Davidson,
who pronounced them too imperfect for specific identification.
There can be no doubt that these Upper Devonian beds,
lying between Dartmouth Harbour and the Metamorphic
Schists are prolonged westward to Bigbury Bay, where they
are by no means destitute of fossils, though a careful
examination of them has not been rewarded with any
specimens of much interest.
II.
FOSSIL FISII IN TIIE DEVONIAN ROCKS OF DEVONSHIRE.
There is in my collection a fine scale of the Devonian,=
Old Red Sandstone, fish, Phyllolepis concentricus, Ag., which
has been mentioned by Mr. Etheridge, Mr. Beete Jukes, and
Dr. FI. Holl in the following passages
The first says, “ The 113 described species [of fish] in the
three recognised divisions of the Old Bed Sandstone of
England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, until lately had no
known or well authenticated representative in the British
marine Devonians. We now know of three species:—
Phyllolepis coneentricvs from the Lower Devonian slates of
Cornwall,” &c., and as authority for the statement he refers
*
to a paper by me.
Mr. Jukes’s statement is as follows:—“Hearing from
* “On the Physical Structure of West Somerset and. North Devon, and
on the Palaeontological Value of the Devonian Fossils.” By Robert
Etheridge, Esq , f.g.s , f.k.s.e. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. of London, vol.
xxiii. p. 677- ls67.
�6
NOTES ON RECENT NOTICES OF THE
Professor Huxley that he had just received from Mr. Pengelly
a specimen of Ptcraspis of a larger size than any species
previously known ; I wrote to Mr. Pengelly for information
respecting its locality. He informs me that it was procured
at Old Mills, Looe, Cornwall................. The Phyllolepis concentricus and the other fish previously found by Mr. Pengelly
were from the same beds.”*
According to Dr. Holl, “In the cliff between Meadfoot
sands and the Thatcher rock [Torbay} two fine scales of
Phyllolepis concentricus, Ag., have been found by Mr. Pengelly,
and are now in his collection.” +
From the foregoing passages, the reader would probably
feel safe in concluding that two scales of the fish had been
found by me, and that I had subsequently found a specimen
of Ptcraspis; but he would of necessity be puzzled about the
locality, it being the shore of Torbay according to Dr. Holl,
and Cornwall according to Messrs. Etheridge and Jukes —
the latter, indeed, specifying “ Old Mills, Looe,” as the exact
spot.
In truth, however, only one scale was found, and that
several years after the specimen of Ptcraspis was met with.
The locality, as stated by Dr. Holl, was the northern shore
of Torbay, between Meadfoot beach and the Thatcher rock,
at the base of the cliff, almost immediately under the house
known as Kilmorie. To be perfectly correct, it may be as
well to add that the scale was found, not by me, but by my
son in my presence. For the History of the Discovery of
Fossil Fish in the Devonian Rocks of Devon and Cornwall,
see Trans. Devon. Assoc, vol. ii. pp. 423—142. 1868.
III.
DEVONIAN TRILOBITES OF DEVON AND CORNWALL.
Sir Charles Lyell has greatly enriched his “ Student’s
Elements of Geology” by adding, in the second edition, pub
lished early in the present year (1874), a diagrammatic
“ Table of British Fossils, illustrative of the successive
Appearance and Development in Time of the different Orders
of Animals and Plants,” drawn up by Mr. Etheridge, F.R.S.,
F.G.S., of the Geological Survey. A' cording to the table the
* “Notes on Parts of Sooth Devon and Cornwall with Remarks on the
True Relation' of the Old Red Sandstone to the Devonian Formation. By
J. Becte Jukes, m.a , f.r.s. Read before the Royal Geological Society of
Ireland, November 13, 1867,” p. 4'2.
f “On the Older Rocks of South Devon and Fas' Cornwall. By Harvey
I>. Holl,
f o s.” Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. of London, vol. xxiv. pp.
42s-9. 1868.
�GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY OF DEVONSHIRE.
7
“Group” Trilobita includes 14 British Families, all dating
from pre-Devonian times, to which 10 of them are restricted.
The remaining 4 appear among British Devonian fossils:
the Calymenidce, extending apparently not beyond the very
lowest Devonian beds; the Harpedidce and Bronteidce,
reaching Middle Devonian times; and the Proteidce, passing
through to the Carboniferous period.
*
The late Mr. Salter, in his monograph on “ British Trilo
bites,” f which he unfortunately did not live to finish, also
divides the “ Group” into 14 “ Families.” When collecting
materials for his work, he had access to the principal collec
tions of the Devonian fossils of Devon and Cornwall, in
addition to the national collection in Jermyn Street, London,
including those of Messrs. Champernowne, Hall, Lee, Valpy,
Vicary, and myself, and named all the Trilobites he found in
them. I have thus been enabled, with the aid of my brother
collectors, to include in the following table a few particulars
not found in the parts of the Monograph which have been
printed:
* Op. cit. pp. 630-2.
t “ A Monograph of British Trilobites.” By J. W. Salter, a.l.s., f.g.s.
Four Parts only have appeared. They were printed by the Paheontographical Society in 1864, i860, 1866, and 1867.
�TABLE showing the Families, Genera, and Species of the Devonian Trilobites of Devonshire and Cornwall, as deter
mined by the late Mr. J. W. Salter, a.l.s., f.g.s., with their Localities and Horizons, and the Collections in which they
are lodged.
8
NOTES ON RECENT NOTICES OF THE
�GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY OF DEVONSHIRE.
9
It appears from the first two columns that the known
Devonian trilobites of Devon and Cornwall belong to 7
families, 8 genera, and 14 species. In short, exactly one half
of the British families are represented in the Devonian fauna.
It may be well perhaps to give a brief description of the
localities named in the third column.
Barton, a village about three miles northward from Torquay
harbour, contains Middle Devonian limestone.
Black Hall is about six miles south-west from Totnes, and
has fossiliferous slates near it, probably of Lower Devonian
age.
Braunton is a village about five miles north-west from
Barnstaple. The beds are Upper Devonian.
Brushford is a village about one mile and a half south of
Dulverton, and three and a half north-west of Bampton.
The beds are Upper Devonian.
Ghircombe Bridge crosses the Itiver Lemon, in the Bradley
Valley, about one mile and a half west from Newton Abbot.
There are several Middle Devonian limestone quarries near
it. The trilobites, all of the genus Pliillipsia, are found in
that known as Ivy-Green quarry, on the right bank of, and
adjacent to, the river.
Croyde Bay is an inlet on the northern shore of Barnstaple
Bay. The beds are of Upper Devonian age.
Goodleigh is a village about three miles east of Barnstaple.
The beds are Upper Devonian.
Great Tressel quarry is in the parish of St. Keyne, about
two miles south-south-west from Liskeard. The deposits are
Lower Devonian.
Hope’s Nose is the northern horn of Torbay. The fossil
iferous beds are Middle Devonian limestone.
Knowl Hill, in the parish of Highweek, may be termed a
suburb of Newton Bushell. The hill consists mainly of trap,
and has a volcanic ash on its flanks, in which the trilobite
Phacops Icevis occurs. The exact horizon of this ash is diffi
cult of determination, as scarcely any other fossil occurs there,
and it is not known with certainty that the trilobite has any
other British locality. Mr. Salter supposed the ash to be of
Upper Devonian age, but does not appear to have stated on
what evidence he came to this conclusion.
Lummaton limestone quarry is very near that at Barton,
already described. The beds are Middle Devonian.
Meadfoot Bay, a portion of Torbay, is adjacent to Torquay,
and lies between it and Hope’s Nose. The fossils occur in
gritty Lower Devonian slates.
�10
NOTES ON RECENT NOTICES OF THE
For “Newton Busliell” may be understood any of the
Middle Devonian limestone quarries near it.
South Petherwin, or, more correctly, Landlake Upper
Devonian limestone quarries are about two miles south-west
from Launceston.
The parish of Pilton, adjacent to Barnstaple, contains
several Upper Devonian localities, including Frankmarsh,
Bradiford, and Top Orchard quarries.
Roseland Vale quarry, about a mile and a half south-east of
Liskeard, is worked in Lower Devonian beds.
By “ Torquay ” may probably be understood any fossiliferous locality near it. Fossils so labelled may be of either
Middle or Lower Devonian age.
Wolborough limestone quarry, on the left of and adjacent
to the road from Newton Abbot to Totnes, about a mile from
the former, and very near the parish church, is famous for
the great number and variety of fossils it yielded to the
researches of Mr. God win-Austen.
*
Mr. Salter supposed
this mass of limestone to be of Upper Devonian age, but
there can be little or no doubt that it is Middle Devonian.
Yeolm Bridge, about one mile and a half north-north-west
from Launceston, is an Upper Devonian locality.
Under the heading of “ Horizons,” L., M., U., denote Lower,
Middle, and Upper Devonian respectively, and the asterisk
indicates that the fossil named on the same horizontal line
has been found in the “ horizon ” stated at the head of the
column in which it stands. It is obvious that the Middle
Devonian beds are richest in Trilobites, as they are in fossils
generally.
The column headed “ References ” is intended to set forth
in what part of his Monograph Mr. Salter described and
figured the several species. The entry “ Not figured” simply
signifies that the species was not figured in the Monograph,
and is not intended to intimate whether or not it has been
figured elsewhere.
The “ Collections ” mentioned in the last column are, in
addition to that in Jermyn Street, those of Messrs. A.
Champernowne, M.A., f.g.s., Dartington Hall, Totnes; T. M.
Hall, f.g.s., Pilton Parsonage, Barnstaple; J. E. Lee, F.G.S.,
f.s.a., Villa Syracuse, Torquay; W. Vicary, F.G.S., The Priory,
Colleton Crescent, Exeter; and my own, Lamorna, Torquay.
A single example will suffice by way of explanation:—
We learn from the table that the Devonian Trilobite, Phacops
* See “Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain,” &c., vol. i.,
1846, p. 88.
�GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY OF DEVONSHIRE.
11
latifrons, has been found at Barton, Black Hall, Braunton,
Brushford, Croyde, Goodleigh, Hope’s Nose, l’ilton, Roseland
Vale, Wolborough, and Yeolm Bridge; that it occurs in
Lower, Middle, and Upper Devonian beds ; that Mr. Salter
described it on pages 18, 19, 20 of his Monograph on
“ British Trilobites,” published by the Palæontographical
Society, and figured it in plate i. figures 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14,
15, and 16 of the same work ; and that specimens of the
fossil, found in one or more of the foregoing localities, are in
the collections of the Geological Survey, Jermyn Street; Mr.
Hall, Pilton ; Mr. Pengelly, Torquay ; and Mr. Vicary, Exeter.
IV.
THE SOURCE OF THE WHITE CLAYS OF BOVEY
HEATHFIELD, DEVON.
In a paper “On the Sources of the Materials composing
the White Clays of the Lower Tertiaries,” by George Maw,
Esq., F.G.S., F.L.S., &c., read to the Geological Society of
London, June 19, 1867, the author says “ Messrs. Pengelly
*
and Heer, at p. 9 of their Memoir ‘On the Lignite formation
of Bovey Tracey,’ .... make reference to the probable
derivation of the deposit from the degradation of the Dart
moor granite. This inference seems to be due more to the
geographical proximity of the granite to the clays of the
Lignite formation than to any more certain evidence.
“ The present areal outline of the deposit, and the surface
contour of the country, may perhaps give the Lignite-forma
tion a more local aspect than it really possesses ; and the
occurrence of beds of similar physical character and age, far
removed from the source of granite materials, would seem to
throw doubt on the suggested local origin from the granite
of Dartmoor.
“ At the time of the white Tertiary clays the chalk must
have more completely covered the older formations than at
present, and shrouded them from being sources of supply for
the Tertiary deposits ; and the geographical distribution of
the white Tertiary clays, which are either superimposed on,
or in close proximity to the chalk, suggests a derivation from
it rather than from the granite rocks.”
Another point to be noticed is, that Kaolin (the result of
the decomposition of felspar) is perfectly implastic, a feature
opposed to the character of the white Tertiary clays, the
* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. 23, pp. 387-394. 1867.
�12
NOTES ON RECENT NOTICES OF THE
chemical composition of which favours a derivation from the
chalk rather than from the decomposition of the felspar of
granite.”*
In a previous paragraph the author says, “In testing the
state of division of the Bovey Tracey . . . . clays, 1 found
that, after mixing them with water to the consistency of
cream, and passing them through fine silk lawn, containing
10,000 perforations to the square inch, no appreciable
quantity of coarse matter remained behind from most of the
examples, not even to the weight of a grain out of several
pounds of clay.”f
On entering on the consideration of the paragraphs just
quoted, it is but fair to my colleague, the Bev. Professor
Heer, to state that the passage in “ The Lignite Formation of
Bovey Tracey,” referred to by Mr. Maw, occurs in the
geological portion of the Memoir, for which I alone am
responsible, Dr. Heer having undertaken the botanical por
tion only. Having shown, in the Bovey Memoir, that in the
three sections taken in the “ Coal Pit” and described in detail,
certain beds “ thin out” or entirely disappear eastward, whilst
others become gradually thinner in the same direction,
that is, as the sections are prolonged from Dartmoor, it is
remarked, in the passage alluded to by Mr. Maw, that “This
attenuation, like the thinning out of the beds previously
mentioned, .... is probably an indication, were one needed,
that the detrital layers were formed at the expense of the
Dartmoor granite.”!
The first fact which presents itself is that whilst Mr. Maw
spoke of “ White Clays,” I was speaking of clays which
were “rather light, light drab, buff, lead-colour, light leadcolour, dark lead-colour, brown, blue, very dark blue, very
dark, or approaching to black,” but none of them white.
There are beautifully white clays on the Heathfield; but
instead of being Tertiary they are of more modern age, overlie
unconformably the Tertiary series, and are not the beds I
was describing or referring to.
Again, Mr. Maw was speaking of clays having a com
mercial value, whilst those I had under notice are incapable
of being utilized.
Further, though there is no doubt that “the geographical
proximity of the granite ” was not without influence in lead* Op. cit. pp. 392-3.
t Ibid, 388.
I See “The Lignite Formation of Bovey Tracey, Devonshire.” By
William Pengellv, r n.s., f./;.s., ¿¿c., and the Rev. Oswald Hee., Doctor of
Philosophy, &c., London, 1863, p. 9. See also Phil. Trans., part ii. 1862,
p. 1027.
�GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY OF DEVONSHIRE.
13
ing to the conclusion that the clays were derived from the
degradation of the Dartmoor rocks, it was by no means the
only, or the most important evidence. Indeed, the very
passage in question calls attention to the attenuation and
“thinning out” of beds in an easterly direction, as indicating
a granitic derivation.
In each of the Coal Pit sections there were two great
divisions of Miocene beds ; the upper, from the 2nd to the
27th bed inclusive, made up of lignite, clay, and sand, whilst
the lower consisted of lignite and clay only. The following
descriptions of some of the beds in the first section, near the
western end of the pit, are copied from the “ Bovey Lignite
Formation,” and are calculated to throw light on the origin
of both the sand and clay.
“ 3rd Bed ; 6 feet 3 inches in thickness. Sand.—Quartzose,
with a ferruginous clay at the base.”
“8th Bed; 5 inches in thickness. Clay.—Dark . . . .
Graduates into sand at the base.”
“ 10th Bed; 2 feet in thickness. Clay.—Tough, light leadcolour. Contains lenticular patches of sand.”
“11th Bed; 8 inches thick. Sand .... in some cases
cemented into a coarse grit or very fine conglomerate ;” [the
materials being quartzose without trace of Hint].
“ 14th Bed ; 2 feet 9 inches in thickness. Clay.—Sandy
and brittle.”
“ 27th Bed ; 11 feet 1 inch in thickness. Sand.—Quartzose.
Very coarse in the uppermost part [where angular and subangular fragments of crystals of felspar were prevalent], but
becomes gradually finer towards the base. Contains some
what large lenticular patches of clay.”
“ 28th Bed; 5 feet 9 inches in thickness. Clay. Light
colour. Near the top it is somewhat sandy.” *
To the foregoing may be added the description of a bed in
the second “ Pit” section, 460 feet eastward from the first:—
“ 4th Bed ; 10 feet 5 inches in thickness. Clay.—In some
parts sandy, f
From the descriptions just quoted it will be seen—
1st. That the Sands, and notably the 27th bed, consisted
of materials such as, amongst the rocks of the district, granite
alone could supply, mixed with such as granite could but
chalk could not furnish ; but without a trace of such as
could have been derived from chalk.
2nd. That the felspar crystals occurring so plentifully in
the 27th Bed, show conclusively that during the period of
* “The Lignite Formation,” pp. 4, 5.
f Ibid, p. 7.
�14
NOTES ON RECENT NOTICES OF THE
the Bovey Lignite formation, the chalk did not, as Mr. Maw
supposes, shroud the Dartmoor granite from being a source
of supply for the Tertiary deposits.
3rd. That the clays, sometimes distributed throughout the
mass of the sand, and at others taking the form of lenticular
patches in it, are, at least, as indicative of a granitic as of a
calcareous origin; and, in all probability, were, like the sands
in which they occurred, derived from the granite.
4th. That it was unnecessary to resort to such experiments
as those adopted by Air. Maw to detect the presence of coarse
matter in the clays, for sand was so obviously distributed
through their general mass in some of the beds as to entitle
them to the epithet of “sandy,” whilst others graduated
into sand, and some contained it in the form of lenticular
patches.
Whilst most readily acknowledging the intimate acquaint
ance with clays which Air. Alaw necessarily possesses, it
seems a sufficient reply to his statement, “that Kaolin, the
result of the decomposition of felspar, is perfectly implastic,”
to remark that the St. Austell clays, artificially prepared from
disintegrated granite, are largely used in the manufacture of
china and the tine kinds of earthenware, where “ perfect implasticity” would scarcely be a recommendation. Whether
the clays lying between the beds of lignite in the Bovey Coal
Pit are or are not plastic, I am not prepared to state.
In short, whilst abstaining from the expression of any
opinion respecting the derivation of the white clays to which
Air. Alaw calls attention, but of which I was not writing, my
opinion that the detrital layers in the Pit on Bovey Heath
field were formed at the expense of the Dartmoor granite,
remains unchanged and unshaken.
Before dismissing the Bovey deposits, it may be as well to
call attention to the following brief notices of them in Bev.
W. S. Symonds’s “Record of the Rocks”: —
“It [the clay at Fremington, near Barnstaple, North Devon]
may be a glacial till like that of Bovey Tracey, which there
covers the Aliddle Tertiary Lignite, and which afforded Arctic
plants such as Betula nana and Salix herbacea, to the re
searches of Air. Pengelly.”*
“Close to the village [of Bovey Tracey] is a Pottery in
which the upper clay, which consists principally of decom
posed granite, is used while the baking of the pottery is
carried on by means of the coal or lignite.” f
“It is not uninteresting to note that Air. Divett’s pottery
* Op. eit. p. 278.
f Ibid, p. 287.
�GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY OF DEVONSHIRE.
15
[at Bovey Tracey] should be fabricated of glacial clays, and
baked with the brown coal that underlies it.”*
Air. Symonds states the total thickness of the two Bovey
formations to be “ 66 feet.” f
The foregoing passages may be said to contain statements
respecting the following topics, all requiring notice: —
1st. The plants found in the Clays covering the Lignite.
2nd. The Clay used in making the Bovey pottery.
3rd. The Coal used in baking the pottery.
4th. The aggregate thickness of the Bovey formations.
1st. The Arctic plants found in the White Clay overlying
unconforinably the Lignite series, were identified by Professor
Heer as Betula nana, Linn.; Salix cincrea, Linn.; and &
repcns (?), Linn.t Salix herbacea was not found, as the author
supposes. It may be as well to add that this error is of very
little moment, the climatal indications being much the same
as those of the species which really occurred. It may be
also stated that Professor Heer now considers that the
leaves which he doubtfully referred to Salix repens really
belong to S. my rtilloidcs, Wild., at present a native of Sweden.
Mr. Alfred Nathorst, of Lund, in Sweden, on whose authority
the foregoing correction is made, visited Bovey Tracey in
1872, and found leaves of Bctula nana very common, at
depths varying in different localities from 1 to 10 feet, and
with them seeds and catkins of the same species. They were
deposited with leaves of Salix cincrea and several others of
the same genus not yet specifically determined, remains of
Cunces, a Potamogcton or Pondweed, and leaves of Arctostaplrylos uoa-ursi, Adan., or the Bed Bearberry (- Arbutus
uva-ursi, Linn.)§ ; the last being, according to Smith, a native
of stony, barren, alpine heaths in the North of England, and
in Scotland and Ireland. ||
2nd. There is no doubt that, as Mr. Symonds states, the
upper or “glacial” clay is used at the Bovey Pottery, but a
very small amount only is obtained from this source. Clays
of other localities, and perhaps of other eras, are chiefly used.
3rd. The statement that at Bovey the baking of the pottery
is carried on by means of the lignite, though perhaps correct•
§
*
• Ibid, p. 290.
t Ibid, p. 267.
J See “The Lignite Formation of Bovey Tracey, Devonshire,” pp. 26
and 62 4.
§ See a paper entitled “ Cm den Arktiska Vegetationens est bredning ofver
Europa novr om Alperna under istiden.” Af Alfred Nathorst. Stockholm,
1873. p. 17.
|| Sec “ English Botany.” By Sir James Edward Smith, M.n., e.r.s., p.l.s ,
3rd e<l. 1831, vol. iv. p. 5.
�16
NOTES ON RECENT NOTICES OF THE
enough during an early stage of the undertaking, has long
ceased to be so. Ordinary “ sea-borne” coal has for many
years been used to at least a considerable extent; and in
1859, when the lignite in one of the old pit tunnels took fire
and rendered it necessary to discontinue the excavation, in
order tliaf, by allowing the water to accumulate, the fire
might be extinguished, it was, of course, the only fuel em
ployed ; and since that time no use has been made of the
lignite at the pottery. ”
*
4th. The two formations—“ Glacial” and Miocene—have at
the Bovey coal-pit an aggregate thickness of 125 feet, of
which no more than 7'5 feet belongs to the more recent series;f
but good evidence was obtained in 1860-1 that the lignite or
miocene series alone has a total thickness of 218 feet.l Air.
Symonds probably took the figures of the second Pit section,
which was carried to a depth of 66 feet 10 inches only. §
V. THE GRANITE BOULDER OF SAUNTON, BARNSTAPLE BAY.
The Rev. W. S. Symonds, in his “Records of the Rocks,” says,
“The Rev. I). Williams, in his paper ‘On the Croyde Raised
Beach,’ describes a large block of granite which was resting
directly on the fundamental slates, and covered and imbedded
by the base of the beach. It is a true erratic boulder, but
comes only from Lundy Island to the westward.” ||
Whilst agreeing with the author that the block “is a true
erratic boulder,” I am not prepared to accept his unqualified
statement that it “comes only from Lundy Island.” It is
true that Lundy is mainly composed of granite, and is nearer
than any other mass of that rock to the spot where the boulder
now lies ; but these are the only facts in favour of the hypo
thesis, against which there are two formidable objections.
1st. There is no reason to suppose Lundy capable of fur
nishing such a block. Air. T. AL Hall, f.g.s., who has care
fully studied the geology of the Islet, and lias been so good as
to write me on the subject, says, “The main body of rock on
Lundy differs in every respect from that which forms the
Saunton boulder, but I have seen some altered granite, ad
joining one of the numerous dykes on the eastern side of the
Island, which very nearly approximates it in colour and
texture. Where the dykes occur, there peat and ferns gene
rally cover the rock ; but as far as I know there is no vein
capable of producing a block of such magnitude.”
* “The Lignite Formation,” pp. xvi. xvii.
t Ibid, p. 14.
§ Ibid, p 7.
f Ibid, pp. 5, 6.
|| Op. cit p. 276.
�GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY OF DEVONSHIRE.
17
2nd. I have shown elsewhere that, come whence it may, the
*
block must have been ice-borne; and that though it is im
possible that the spot it now occupies could have been higher
than at present above the level of mean tide, there is nothing
to show that it was not lower. The ice-buoy to bring it from
Lundy must therefore have been of the nature of a berg, which
it is at least difficult to believe so small a spot could have
furnished. Should it be suggested that the Islet may have
been larger when the boulder was transported than it is at
present, it may be safely replied that, respect being had to
the relative levels of land and sea at that time and at present,
to the very bold coast which Lundy presents, and to the great
depth of water close to it, there is little or no probability that
the difference of area was noteworthy.
In short, I am satisfied that Lundy could neither have fur
nished the boulder nor the ice-buoy to float it.
VI. BRIXHAM CAVERN.
In the third edition of his Physical Geology and Geography
of Great Britain, Professor Ramsay gives a list of the mammals
whose remains were found in Brixham Cavern in 1858-9, and
places Rhinoceros leptorhinus, but not R. tichorhinus, amongst
them.f He states that the list was taken from a well-known
paper by Mr. Boyd Dawkins in the Journal of the Geological
Society of London, for 1869 (vol. xxv., p. 194). On turning
to the Journal, a clear and elaborate table presents itself,
having, on the same horizontal line with “ R. leptorhinus
Ow.” and in the same vertical column with “ Brixham Cave,”
an asterisk justifying Ramsay’s statement. On page 200 of
the same journal, Mr. Boyd Dawkins says, “ I have to thank
Mr. George Busk, F.R.S., for a perfect list of species from this
[Brixham] Cave.” As Mr. Busk had been entrusted by the
Brixham Cave Committee with the identification of the re
mains found in the Cavern, it is clear that Mr. Boyd Dawkins
got his information from head quarters, and there seems every
reason for accepting it as perfectly trustworthy. Nevertheless,
“ a grain of salt” is never a thing to be treated with indifference.
In 1870, Mr. Busk read to the Geological Society of London
a paper “ On the Species of Rhinoceros whose remains were
found in a Fissure Cavern at Oreston in 1816.” This paper,
printed in the Journal of the Society for 1870 (vol. xxvi.),
contains the following passage :—“ The Oreston collection . . .
* See Trans. Devon. Assoc., vol. vi. pp. 211-22, 1873.
f See “Physical Geology and Geography of Great Britain,” by A. C.
Ramsay, ll.d., f.r.s., third edition, 1872, p. 186-7.
B
�18
NOTES ON RECENT NOTICES OF TIIE
acquires very great interest, not only as adding another to the
as yet scanty instances of the occurrence of that species
[Rhinoceros leptorhinus] anywhere, in Britain, but more espe
cially as affording the only recorded example of its discovery
in a cavern of any kind—a fact the more remarkable, perhaps,
since no vestige of its remains has occurred in the Brixham
Cave.”*
It is not enough therefore to be sure that we read Professor
Ramsay correctly, not enough to find that he quoted Mr.
Dawkins accurately ; so long as there is yet another step in
the process of verification by all means let it be taken. On
going to Air. Busk, it proves that there is a mistake some
where ; there should have been no asterisk opposite “ Rh.
leptorhinus” and under “Brixham Cave.” Its place is op
posite Rh. tichorhinus.
But let us recur to Air. Busk’s paper. It states, it will be
remembered, that with the exception of Oreston, there is no
recorded instance of the occurrence of Rhinoceros leptorhinus
in a cavern of any kind. Yet, whilst this is still ringing in
our ears, Air. Boyd Dawkins’s table ascribes this very species
to no fewer than eleven British Caves—Coygau Cave in Caermarthenshire, Cefn Cavern in Denbighshire, Durdham Down
near Bristol, Kirkdale Cavern in Yorkshire, AVokey Hole in
Somersetshire, and Bacon’s Hall, Crawley Rock, Crow Hole,
Long Hole, Alinchin Hole, and Raven’s Cliff, all in Gower in
South Wales. The table is followed by a long list of authori
ties, to which it would be delightful to proceed in pursuit of
further game, were it not beyond our present limits.
There can be no doubt that this apparent conflict between
the two eminent authors originated in the printing office,
through a misplacement of the asterisks in Air. Boyd Dawkins’s
table, and much to his annoyance, of course.
Be this as it may, the error is by no means of slight im
portance, inasmuch as the climatal indications of the two
species of Rhinoceros are believed to differ greatly.
Mention having been made above of the Oreston Caverns,
it may be as well to state that the word which the Rev. W.
S. Symonds, no doubt, wrote “ Oreston,” when speaking of
the Caverns “ a little east of Plymouth,” in his “ Records of
the Rocks,” has unfortunately been printed “ Preston.” The
error has crept in no fewer than five times.f Though he
places the “Irish Elk” in the Oreston list, I am not aware of
any authority for doing so.
The late Dr. Falconer identified amongst the remains found
* Op. cit. p. 4.56.
+ See pp. 296-7, and “Index” p. 130.
�GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY OF DEVONSHIRE.
19
in Brixham Cavern, a fragment of the cranium, including the
entire maxilla and all the teeth but one, of Lagomys spelams,
Owen = Cave Pika = Tailless Hare. Professor Prestwich men
tions it at least four times in his “ Report on the Exploration
of Brixham Cave,” presented to the Royal Society of London,
and printed by that body in the Phil. Trans. Twice he uses
*
the names “Lagomys spelceus” and “ Lemming” jointly—the
former as the scientific name and the latter as the popular
one,—and once he employs the latter only. In short he
seems to treat Lagomys as a Lemming.
I was much surprised at the fact on reading the Report,
but concluded that possibly some discoveries of which I had
not heard had rendered it necessary to remove Lagomys from
the Hares and place it among the Voles.
No 153 of the “ Proceedings of the Royal Society,” which
has just reached me (July 1874), contains a “Note on the
alleged Existence of Remains of a Lemming in Cave deposits
in England,” by Professor Owen, C.B., f.r.s., who, after quoting
as his text the passages just alluded to in Professor Prestwicli’s
Report, states that no fossil evidence of a Lemming had come
to his knowledge when in 1846 he published his “ British
Fossil Mammals and Birdsthat he has since obtained such
evidence from a deposit of brick-earth near Salisbury asso
ciated with Elcphas pri/migenius; that the Lemmings belong
to the family of Voles (Mnhco/icZ«?), not of Hares (Lcponz/ic);
that the fossil from Brixham appears from the figures to be
rightly referred to Lagomys and to the species he had deter
mined and named in 1846, from a specimen submitted to
him by Dr. Buckland, which had been found by the Rev. Mr.
MacEnery, in Kent’s Hole, Torquay; that it is evidently a
tailless Hare, not a Lemming; that the first evidence of
Lagomys spelccus had led him to remark that “ it unquestion
ably attested the former existence in England of a species of
rodent, whose genus is not only unrepresented in the present
day in our British fauna, but has long ceased to exist in any
part of the Continent of Europe;”! and that the Lemmings
still disturb by their multitudinous migratory swarms, the
husbandmen of Scandinavia. +
vii. rent’s cavern, Torquay.
In a paper entitled “ Observations on the Rate at which
Stalagmite is being accumulated in the Ingleborough Cave,”
* Sec Phil. Trans, vol. clxiii. part ii. 1873, pp. 556, 560.
t See “British Fossil Mammals,’’ &c., p. 213.
t Op. cit. pp. 364-5.
B 2
�20
NOTES ON RECENT NOTICES OF THE
by W. Boyd Dawkins, F.R.S., F.G.S., the author states, on
*
what appears to be most satisfactory evidence, that the apex
of a boss of stalagmite, known as the Jockey's Cap, in that
cave, rising from the crystalline pavement to a height of
2'5 feet, was found, by careful measurement, on March 13th,
1873, to be 87 inches from the roof, whilst, when measured
by Mr. James Farrer, on October 30th, 1845, it was 95’25
inches from it; so that the upward growth has been 8 25
inches in 27’37 years, giving an average vertical growth of ’3
inch per year.
On the strength of this fact, the author remarks that “ all
the stalagmites and stalactites in the Ingleborough Cave may
not date further back than the time of Edward III. if the
Jockey cap be taken as a measure of the rate of deposition.”
“ It is evident,” he continues, “ from this instance of rapid
accumulation, that the value of a layer of stalagmite, in
fixing the high antiquity of 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.”
It is but fair to state that Mr. Dawkins admits that “it
is very possible that the Jockey Cap may be the result, not
of the continuous, but of the intermittent drip of water con
taining a variable quantity of carbonate of lime, and that,
therefore, the present rate of growth is not a measure of its
past or future conditionbut it may be doubted whether in
his reasoning he has been sufficiently influenced by his own
admission.
But waiving all this, and assuming that the upward growth
of the Jockey Cap, that is its approach to the roof, has been
uniform, the following questions present themselves :—
1st. Is the accumulation of stalagmite equally rapid in all
caverns ?
2nd, If not, why must the rate of accumulation in Ingle
borough Cave be taken as the measure for other caverns ?
3rd. Has there been an undue tendency to trust to the
thickness of the Kent’s Hole stalagmites in fixing the anti
quity of deposits below it ?
1st. It is probably doubtful whether useful observations on
the rate at which stalagmite accumulates have been made in
many caverns; the well known Cheddar cavern, however,
furnishes information as trustworthy and as significant as
* See “ Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Manchester,” March
18, 1873, pp. 83-6.
�GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY OF DEVONSHIRE.
21
that obtained from Ingleborough. When the late Mr. George
Cox, in 1838, discovered that cavern he noted the case of a
stalactite and stalagmite which had approached so near to
one another that a single drop of water suspended from the
point of the former just touched that of the latter. When
this fell off, its place was taken by a second drop, which as
completely filled the interspace; and this has gone on ever
since without bringing the points perceptibly nearer. In
short, to use the words of Mr. J. Streatfield Cox, the present
proprietor of the Cavern, who has been so good as to write
me on the subject, “In 35 years there has been no appreciable
growth in any of the formations.”
2nd. Should it be remarked that there may be in other
parts of Cheddar Cave examples of perceptible or even com
paratively rapid increase, it may be replied that, though this
may perhaps be true, it cannot be admitted without admitting
also that it is probably as true that in other parts of Ingle
borough Cave there may be rates of increase very slow as
compared with that of the Jockey Cap, and that it is unsafe
to use the rate at which stalagmite accumulates in one branch
of a cavern to measure the time represented by the stalag
mite in any other branch of the same cavern ; and that, con
sequently, even if it has been uniform, the rate of the growth
of the Jockey Cap of Ingleborough Cave cannot be applied
as a chronometer in the case of any other cavern. Speaking
for myself, and after an experience in numerous caverns and
extending over very nearly 30 years, I may say that it ap
pears to be just as reasonable to use for the same purpose
the rate at which veritable jockey caps, birds’ nests, wigs,
stuffed rats, &c. are encrusted with carbonate of lime in the
“dropping well” at Knaresborough.
3rd. Mr. Boyd Dawkins tells us that the layers of stalag
mite in Kent’s Hole may have been formed at the rate of a
quarter of an inch in a century. Let us assume that this is
a fact, and see whither it will lead us. I have found teeth
of the Cave Bear, Cave Hyaena, the Mammoth, and the
tichorhine lihinoceros so very little below the surface of the
stalagmite in Kent’s Cavern, that more than an inch and
half, at most, of calcareous matter had not accumulated there
since they were lodged where they were met with, whilst
below them was a floor of the same material a foot, and
sometimes much more, in thickness ; and the situation was
such as to place it beyond all doubt or question that they
had not been dislodged from an older deposit and re-inhumed.
Taking the suggested chronometer of a quarter of an inch for
�22
NOTES ON RECENT NOTICES OF THE
a year, we arrive at the startling but inevitable conclusion
that Rhinoceros ticliorhinus and his contemporaries were
living in the Torquay district about six years ago.
Again, there is in a branch of the Cavern sometimes called
the “Cave of Inscriptions,” a vast boss of stalagmite having on
one of its sides an inscription partially sealed up with a film of
stalagmite not more than -05 inch thick. At the rate of a
quarter of an inch per year this must have been cut some
thing less than three months ago (='05
'25 =‘2 year).
Unfortunately for this conclusion, however, the inscription
was observed in 1825 by the late Rev. J. MacEnery, who
described it in the following words :—“ The letters are glazed
over and partly effaced.”* Hence it is obviously at least 49
years old. Indeed, it is certainly much older, inasmuch as
the description just quoted clearly shows that it had not then
been recently cut. The inscription itself—“ Robert Hedges of
Ireland Feb. 20, 1688,”—claims to be 186 years old, and the
fact that, though the drip is still certainly at work on it,
MacEnery’s description, given very nearly half a century
ago, is still perfectly apposite, shows that this claim is too
well founded to be resisted.
Enough has perhaps been said to show that the application
of the Ingleborough rate to the Kent’s Hole facts leads to
utterly untenable and, indeed, absurd conclusions. It must
be unnecessary to say that Mr. Boyd Dawkins simply meant,
not that tlie layers of stalagmite in Kent’s Hole were actually
or probably formed at the rate of a quarter of an inch per
annum, but that if there were no facts to the contrary, their
formation may have gone on at that rapid rate.
In Kent’s Cavern there are two Stalagmites, about the
relative ages of which there is not the least uncertainty. The
least ancient, which, as already stated, was coeval with the
ticliorhine Rhinoceros and his extinct contemporaries, is of
granular texture, and was formed on, and subsequent to the
introduction of, the mechanical deposit known as the Cave
earth. The more ancient Stalagmite lies below this Cave
earth, and was not only formed, but in many places broken
up by some natural agency, before the deposition of the
Cave-earth commenced. It is commonly much thicker than
the other and differs from it in having a very crystalline
texture. Beneath it and of still higher antiquity is another
and distinct mechanical deposit termed Breccia, in which
undoubted evidences of contemporary man have been found.
The Granular, or less ancient, Stalagmite is of less variable
* See Trans. Devon. Assoc., vol. in., p. 275.
�GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY OF DEVONSHIRE.
23
thickness, being in some places upwards of five feet, in others
not more than a mere film, whilst in certain areas there is
none. It has been observed that where this floor is very
thick the drip of water from the roof is at present unusually
copious, where it is thin there is but little drip, and where
there is none the Cavern is at all times quite dry. Again,
where a large stalactite depends from the roof, betokening a
point where the calcareous water has access, there is vertically
beneath it a boss of stalagmite rising from a floor of the
same substance ; and where the more ancient, the Crystalline,
floor of Stalagmite occurs in situ vertically below, there is on
it also another such boss. These facts have been observed
and recorded, not only by the British Association Committee
at present exploring the Cavern, but also by Mr. MacEnery
*
who first made it famous. “ The floor of the Bear’s den,” he
says, “ was studded with pyramidal mounds of spar [stalag
miteJ supporting corresponding pendants from the roof. ....
An irregular crust [of stalagmite] overspread the floor............
This crust was about a foot thick, and was based on a shallow
bed of indurated rubble............ On clearing a considerable
space of which, points of concealed cones were observed to
protrude upwards into this rubbly bed, and as we advanced,
what we had hitherto imagined to be the rocky bottom, dis
covered itself to be a second plate of stalagmite. It is
curious that the cones of this lower crust were seated pre
cisely under those of the upper, denoting [that] they were
successively deposited from the same tubes above .... but
the lowermost set exceeded by double the thickness of the
upper, and the depth of the stalagmite plate around was in
the same proportion.” f
From the foregoing facts it may be safely inferred that
through the entire period of the Cavern history, so far as it is
known, the channels which have introduced the calcareous
water have remained the same in all known cases, and that
at least the relative rates of the accumulation of stalagmite
in the different branches of the Cavern have not altered.
The inscription mentioned above is far from being the only
one, nor is it the oldest in Kent’s Cavern. There are several
of the 17th century, and so far as is at present known the
most ancient of the entire series bears the date of 1604. One
branch, which prior to 1868 was extremely difficult of access,
is so crowded with them as to have received the name of The
Crypt of Dates. In a review of “ Lyell’s ‘ Antiquity of Man,’ ”
* See British Association Report, 1871, p. 13.
f See Trans. Devon. Association, vol. iii., p. 306, also figure p. 311.
�24
NOTES ON RECENT NOTICES OF THE
in “Nature,” October 2, 1873, Mr. A. R. Wallace, speaking of
the Kent’s Cavern stalagmites and the inscriptions in the
Crypt of Dates, says, “ It has been remarked that the varying
thicknesses of the stalagmitic floor, from 16 in. to 5 ft. and
upwards, closely correspond to the present amount of drip in
various parts of the cave.............. But names cut into this
stalagmite more than two centuries ago are still legible, show
ing that, in a spot where the drip is now very copious, and
where the stalagmite is 12 ft. thick, not more than about
one-eighth of an inch, or say one-hundredth of a foot, has
been deposited in that length of time. This gives a foot in
20,000 years, or 5 ft. in 100,000 years............But below this
again there is another and much older layer of stalagmite.
.... This older stalagmite is very thick, and is much more
crystalline than the upper one, so that it was probably formed
at a slower rate............ A fair estimate will therefore give us,
say 100,000 years for the upper stalagmite, and about 250,000
for the deeper layer of much greater thickness, and of more
crystalline texture.”*
For the data on which his calculations and reasoning are
based, Mr. Wallace refers to the British Association Report,
1869, p. 196, for which I am responsible. The following is
the paragraph to which he alludes:—“ In looking at these
dates [in “The Crypt of Dates”], it seems impossible to
abstain from reflecting on the facts that they are cut on the
upper surface of a mass of stalagmite upwards of 12 feet
thick, in a locality where the drip is unusually copious; and
that two and a half centuries have failed to percipitate an
amount of calcareous matter sufficient to obliterate incisions
which at first were probably not more than an eighth of an
inch in depth.”
In the passage quoted from Mr. Wallace two things are
obvious:—(a) That he has taken the rate of deposition at the
rate of the eighth of an inch in 200 years, whereas my state
ment is that 250 years “have failed to precipitate an amount
of calcareous matter sufficient to obliterate incisions which
at first were probably not more than an eighth of an inch in
depth;” not that an eighth of an inch had been deposited in
250 years. In fact, my estimate is, and always has been,
that on no date known to me in the Cavern has there been
deposited more than -05 inch.
(6) Mr. Wallace supposes that the stalagmite 12 feet thick
is entirely of the older, the crystalline, variety ; and that in
addition to this there is a thickness of 5 feet of the less
* Op. cit., p. 463.
�GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY OF DEVONSHIRE.
25
ancient, the granular, stalagmite; making for the two thick
nesses a total of 17 feet; which, at tlie rate of -01 foot in
200 years, would give the total of 350,000 years at which he
arrives for the formation of the two stalagmites alone. In
stead of this, however, as is shown by the context of the
passage in the Report of 1869, the two stalagmites lie one
immediately on the other, without any Cave earth between
them, in the Crypt of Dates, and the total thickness of the
two taken together is about 12’5 feet; not 17 feet.
In short, Mr. Wallace has made two errors calculated to
partially, but not entirely, neutralize each other;—he has
taken too high a rate of deposition which of itself would
lead to too small an amount of time, and too great a total
thickness, which, so far as it goes, has the contrary effect.
Taking the correct data, that of the Report of 1869, we have
12 feet of stalagmite, formed, let it be assumed from the
dates on its upper surface, at the rate of ‘05 inch in 250
years, and thereby arrive at the conclusion that the accumu
lation of the whole required 720,000 years.
Without intending to apply the Kent’s Hole chronometer
to Cheddar Cave, it may not be uninteresting to remark that
the rate of accumulation in the former cavern serves to
diminish the surprise with which we learn that the stalactitic
and stalagmitic points of the latter have not appreciably
come nearer to one another in 35 years; for at the Kent’s
Hole rate of ‘05 inch in 250 years, the actual approach of
the points in 35 years would be no more than ’007 inch
(•05 -e 250 x 35 = *07); —a quantity too small to be perceptible
0
by the naked eye.
4th. There can be little or no doubt that most of his readers
would understand from Mr. Boyd Dawkins’s words that there
had been too great a tendency to trust to the thickness of the
Kent’s Hole stalagmite in forming an estimate of the antiquity
of the Cave men; and I shall be agreeably surprised if they
are not thus quoted in many future discussions on the subject.
Be this as it may, it should be added in justice to myself, that
I have always abstained from, and cautioned others against,
insisting that the thickness of the stalagmite is a perfectly
trustworthy chronometer; nevertheless, it seems fair to ask
*
those who deny that it is of any value to state the basis of
their denial; and I fully concur with Mr. Wallace, that though
the estimate arrived at in a solitary case may in itself be loose
and untrustworthy, “such estimates, if sufficiently multiplied,
* See “The Ancient Cave-Men of Devonshire,” Chambers's Miscellany,
p. 16, 1872.
�26
NOTES ON RECENT NOTICES OF THE
are of great value, since they help to form a definite idea of
what kind of periods we are dealing with, and furnish us
with a series of hypotheses to be corrected or supported by
further observation, and will at last enable us to arrive at the
antiquity of man within certain possible limits of error.”*
The question of the antiquity of the Cave men rests, not
on geological evidence merely, but also on palaeontological,
climatological, archaeological, and geographical considerations;
and if the conclusions to which the latter concur to lead us
harmonize better with a slow than with a rapid accumulation
of stalagmite,—that is with a rate which has certainly ob
tained for several hundreds of years—than with a rate of which
there is no evidence whatever, it is surely more philosophical
to adopt the hypothesis of slow accumulation.
But waiving all this, and supposing it to be true that the
actual and clearly ascertained rate during the last 250 years
is not only too small, but, on the average, 100 times below
the truth, the result would be that the Kent’s Cavern stalag
mites represent, not 720,000, but 7,200 years. Are those who
object to the larger estimate prepared to accept the smaller ?
They must bear in mind that unmistakable evidences of
human existence have presented themselves in the Breccia
which the Crystalline, that is the more ancient, Stalagmite
covers, and which is therefore older still; and that, after all,
the total result would give the antiquity, not of man, but of
the earliest known traces of man in Devonshire. It is of no
service to attempt a concealment of the fact, that the real
contention at present is, not whether man has occupied
Devonshire during 70,000 or 700,000 years, or any still
greater number; but whether the old belief that he first
appeared on the Earth some 6,000 years ago is to be retained
or abandoned.
Mr. Wallace’s speculations, mentioned above, appear to
have elicited several letters on “ Stalagmitic Deposits.” One
from Mr. John Curry, which appeared in “ Nature” of Decem
ber 18th, 1873, contains the following statement:—“ Some
thirty years ago I procured a piece of lime deposit from a
lead mine at Boltsburn, in the county of Durham; it measured
about 18 in. in length, 10 in breadth, and fully -75 inch thick;
it was compact and crystalline, and showed distinct facets of
crystals on its surface, over which the water was running. I
had indisputable evidence that the deposits had taken place
in fifteen years. The water, from which it was produced,
* “Nature,” Octobor 2, 1873, pp. 463-4.
�GEOLOGY AND PALÆONTOLOGY OF DEVONSHIRE.
27
issued from an adit in the Little limestone, which is about
9ft. thick. After leaving the adit, the water ran down the
perpendicular side of a rise, for some fathoms, on to some rock
débris which was lying on the bottom of a hopper, whence it
proceeded from the upper part of the hopper mouth, then per
pendicularly down over two narrowish wood deals, which
were set on edge, and put across the mouth of the hopper to
retain the worked materials. It was from off these deals that
I obtained the specimen above described. On its back side
the forms of the deals were well defined ; on the front one the
crystals were best developed, where the stream was most
active.
“ In accordance with the above rate of increase of deposit,
namely 75in. in fifteen years, 5in. would require 100 years,
4ft. 2in. 1,000 years, and 41ft. 8in. 10,000 years. The data
given to arrive at these results may be relied on as being
accurate. In the case now related, the rate of increase of de
posit was likely to continue tolerably uniform ; as the surface
water could have no appreciable influence in augmenting or
lessening the flow from the adit.”*
Being carefully observed and clearly described, Mr. Curry’s
facts are valuable and interesting ; but his concluding para
graph shows distinctly that they are of no service in the
chronological valuation of the Kent’s Cavern Stalagmites.
In the Boltsburn lead mine the work was continuous; in
Kent’s Hole it was intermittent. In the Torquay Cavern it
was solely performed by the immediate rainfall, whilst in the
Boltsburn mine “the surface water,” we are told, “ could have
no appreciable influence in augmenting or lessening the flow
from the adit in other words, the volume of water constantly
flowing is so great that the rainfall of the district is comparatively nothing, and may be utterly left out of the data.
The conformation of the hill containing Kent’s Hole renders
it certain that the only water entering the Cavern is the rain
which falls on the hill itself, and the only source of stalagmitic matter is the limestone shell of the Cavern ; but nothing
is stated, probably nothing is known, as to the extent of
country contributing the water issuing from the Boltsburn
mine, or how many subterranean streamlets are contributories
to the stream finding its outlet at the adit.
Mr. Curry has been so good as to inform me that there is
no rain gauge at Boltsburn ; that the nearest is that at Allen* “Nature,” vol. ix. pp. 122-3. See also “The Geological Magazine” for
April, 1874, New Series, Decade ii. vol. i. p. 191, where the letter has been
reprinted.
�28
NOTES ON RECENT NOTICES OF THE
heads in Northumberland, about five miles distant in a north
westerly direction, at which the rainfall, he thinks, will closely
approximate that at Boltsburn ; that Alienheads is 1,369 feet
above the sea and Boltsburn 1,100 feet; that there is much
moorland in the vicinity of each place, and a good deal of peat
in the high parts of the moor.
Mr. Symons’s “ British Bainfall ” shows that for the nine
years ending with December 31st, 1872, the rainfall at Alien
heads averaged 51’80 inches per annum, whilst at Torquay
the average was 37’65 inches ; the two numbers being as 138 :
100 ; and yet this heavy rainfall may be neglected, as it can
have no appreciable influence on the permanent flow of water.
Mr. W. Bruce Clarke, writing to the same paper, states
that he visited about ten years ago, a cavern near Brixton,
commonly known as “ Poole’s llole” and observed some
stalagmite, probably | inch in the back [? thickness], had
become deposited upon the gas-pipes, which were used to
light the cave and had been laid down six months before.
*
This rate considerably exceeds that mentioned by Mr. Curry,
but, unfortunately, no information is given respecting the
conditions under which the deposit took place.
Mr. Thomas K. Callard appears to have written about the
same time, and to the same journal, expressing the belief
that the Kent’s Cavern rate of deposit was not uniform; “ for
when the thick forest (the habitat of the animals whose
bones are found in the cave) left an accumulation of decayed
vegetation on the soil, we had the natural laboratory where
the rain would find the carbonic acid, to act as a solvent
upon the calcareous earth, and as this acidulous liquid per
colated through the soil and dripped into the cave, we have
the origin of the stalagmite, but, as by the axe of man, the
forest decreased, in that proportion the chemicals lessened,
and as a consequence the deposit diminished. Besides the
diminution of the solvent, every year that the operation was
going on the material that composed the stalagmite must
have been decreasing in the superjacent soil, so that the
bicarbonate of lime which now takes two centuries to cover
one eighth of an inch [really one twentieth as stated above],
might have been, in days gone by, the work of much shorter
time.”!
It is obvious that Mr. Callard makes the following assump
tions :—
1st. That the Cavern hill was formerly clothed with a
thick forest.
• “Nature,” vol. ix. p. 171, January 1, 1874.
f Ibid.
�GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY OF DEVONSHIRE.
29
2nd. That a thick forest is peculiarly productive of car
bonic acid.
3rd. That the amount of carbonic acid being the same, the
Cavern hill was formerly more capable of yielding stalagmitic
material than it is at present.
1st. It must be admitted on all hands that we have no
means of ascertaining what was the condition of the hill in
the early times to which the Cavern points, but according to
the author of “A Guide to all the Watering Places,” pub
lished in 1803, Kent’s Hole was at that time in a coppice, and
the opening was almost hid in bushes.
*
Such, also, was its
condition when I first visited it in 1834, and such it remained
until the house that now crowns its summit was erected a
very few years ago. The thickness of the ancient forest of
Devonshire could produce no effect in Kent’s Hole unless the
Cavern hill bore its full share of such forests, or unless the
configuration of the adjacent district was so very unlike that
which at present obtains as to send a large part of the water
draining it into the Cavern. The latter hypothesis, however,
would probably of itself take us farther into antiquity than
the present slow rate at which additions are made to the
stalagmite.
2nd. If the trees it bore in earlier times were larger than
those which formed the coppice just mentioned, it is certain
that they must have been correspondingly fewer; and, had
we no further data, it might be doubted whether on an area
fully stocked more carbon would be fixed by large old trees
than by small young ones. Fortunately, however, this problem
received the attention of the eminent Liebig, who gives the
following statement on it:—
“Ferule land produces carbon in the form of wood, hay,
grain, and other kinds of growth, the masses of which differ
in a remarkable degree.
“ 2650 lbs. of firs, pines, beeches, &c., grow annually as wood
upon one Hessian acre of forest-land with an average soil.
The same superficies yields 2500 lbs of hay.
“ A similar surface of corn-land gives .... 800 lbs. of rye,
and 1780 lbs. of straw,—in all 2580 lbs.
“ One hundred parts of dry fir-wood contains 38 parts of
carbon; therefore 2650 lbs. contain 1007lbs. of carbon.
“One hundred parts of hay, dried in air, contain 40'73 parts
carbon. Accordingly, 2500 lbs. of hay contain 1018 lbs. of
carbon.
* Op. cit. p 3-57.
See also “Trans. Devon Asso.” vol. ii. p. 474.
�30
NOTES ON RECENT NOTICES OF TIIE
“ One hundred parts of straw, dried in air, contain 38 per
cent, of carbon ; therefore, 1780 lbs. of straw contain 676 lbs.
of carbon. One hundred parts of corn contain 43 parts of
carbon ; 800 lbs. must therefore contain 344 lbs.—in all 1020
lbs. of carbon.”*
The amounts of carbon from the same area—1007, 1018,
and 1020 lbs.—though not identical, are so nearly so, as to
justify Liebig in remarking that “ it must be concluded from
these incontestable facts, that equal surfaces of cultivated
land of an average fertility are capable of producing equal
quantities of carbonthey suffice also to neutralize the
objection urged by Air. Callard.
3rd. Though it must be admitted that the hill is necessarily
somewhat smaller at present than it was prior to the com
mencement of the stalagmitic formations, the diminution
cannot be considerable ; forjudging from the mean thickness
of the stalagmite into which the limestone has been con
verted, and making ample allowance for insoluble matter, it
cannot be supposed that the vertical loss has amounted to five
feet.
But waiving this ; since a given volume of water, at a
given temperature and pressure, can absorb but a definite
and limited quantity of carbonic acid, which in its turn can
dissolve but a limited quantity of carbonate of lime, it may
be believed that the existing limestone roof of the Cavern,
from 30 to 50 feet in thickness, and the walls of still greater
volume, are amply sufficient to give the solvent the oppor
tunity of doing all the work of which it is capable.
The “Popular Science Review” for January 1874, No. 50,
contains an article on the fourth edition of Sir C. Lyell’s
“ Ge (logical Evidence of the Antiquity of Alan,” &c., in which
the following passages occur :—
“ [Sir C. Lyell] has completely recast the chapter on Kent’s
Hole and the Brixliam Cavern, and has added a considerable
mass of novel evidence regarding the former. This part of
his work is of considerable importance, for the vast researches
of Air. Pengelly and his fellow labourers, Air. Falconer and
Air. Prestwich,—assisted by grants from that wonderfully
generous lady Baroness Burdett Coutts and the Royal Society,
and carried on as they were for a considerable number of years
—have only lately been brought to a conclusion.” f
* “Chemistry in its Applications to Agriculture and Physiology.’’ By
Justus Liebig, m.d., ru.D., f.r.s., m.r.i.a. Edited by Lyon Playfair, ph.d.,
f.o.s., and W. Gregory, m.d , f.r.s.e., 4th ed. 1847, pp. 11, 12.
f Op. cit. pp. 62 - 3.
�GEOLOGY ANI) PAL/EONTOLOGY OF DEVONSHIRE.
31
Again, “There is a deal of important evidence cited in
regard to the exploration of Kent’s Cavern, and some im
portant remarks are made on the subject of the teeth of
Machairodus. Mr. Pengelly is opposed to Mr. Boyd Dawkins
as to the position of this animal. The latter is inclined to
place it in a lower deposit than Mr. Pengelly. That, how
ever, will not much affect the importance of the discovery of
its teeth. Besides, Mr. Pengelly’s idea that the teeth are not
mineralized as the bear’s bones are, does not appear to us a
very formidable objection. For he must remember that the
layers of the enamel do not normally contain more than two
per cent, of animal matter, and that the dentine contains
vastly less than the ordinary bones of a bear. Still, however,
his objection is worthy of attention.” *
The former passage, being not unlikely to allow the reader
to get confused, appears to call for a definite statement re
specting the exploration of the two famous caverns named
in it.
The researches in which I had the pleasure of co-operating
with the late Dr. Falconer and Mr. Prestwich, were those
carried on in the Windmill Hill Cavern, at Brixham, com
mencing in July 1858, and closing, so far as the actual ex
cavation was concerned, at Midsummer 1859. A Deport on
the results obtained was presented to the Royal Society in
1872, and published in the “Philosophical Transactions” for
1873. f The funds were obtained from the following sources :
—The Royal Society of London, £200; The Baroness BurdettCoutts, £50 ; Sir J. Kay Shuttleworth, £5 ; and R. Arling
ton, Esq., £5.
The Kent’s Cavern researches have been carried on entirely
at the expense of the British Association, and by a Com
mittee of that body. The Committee was first appointed in
1864, when it consisted of Sir C. Lyell, Bart. (Chairman),
Professor Phillips, Sir J. Lubbock, Bart., Mr. J. Evans, Mr.
E. Vivian (Treasurer), and Mr. Pengelly (Hon. Secretary) ;
Mr. G. Busk was added in I860 ; Mr. W. Boyd Dawkins, in
1868 ; Mr. W. Ayshford Sanford, in 1869 ; and Mr. J. E. Lee,
in 1873. The work was commenced on 28th March 1865,
has been continued without intermission to the present time,
and is still in progress. The Association has already spent
on it the sum of £1,400, in annual grants varying from £100
to £200.
With regard to the Kent’s Hole Machairodus (Jf. latidens,
Owen), 1 have stated elsewhere that Messrs. Boyd Dawkins
• Op. cit. p. 65.
t Vol. ii. Part ii. pp. 471-572.
�32
NOTES ON RECENT NOTICES OF THE
and Ayshford Sanford had suggested a higher antiquity for
the species than that which I had assigned to it, and have
done my utmost to state fully and fairly the grounds on
which their suggestion rested, as well as those which led me
to decline its acceptance.
*
It is therefore unnecessary to do
more than to recapitulate them here.
There are in Kent’s Cavern two mechanical deposits, differ
ing greatly in age, containing remains of extinct mammals.
One of them, certainly the more ancient, and known as the
Breccia, has, up to the present time, yielded remains of Bears
only ; whilst the other, or less ancient, termed the Cave
Earth, was replete with a great variety of the ordinary Cave
Mammals, amongst which the Cavern hyaena (Hyccncc speloea,
Gold.) was by far the most prevalent species. His presence
was attested by his bones and teeth, by his coprolites, by
bones broken after a pattern known to be characteristic of
the genus, and by his teeth-marks on bones which he had
gnawed ; but no trace of any of these evidences of him
occurred in the more ancient deposit. The remains of
Machairodus found in the Cavern are but scanty, and consist
of seven teeth only—five canines met with by the late Rev.
J. MacEnery, in January 1826, one incisor, by the same
explorer subsequently, and one incisor by the British Asso
ciation Committee in July 1872. It is admitted on all hands
that they were all actually found in the Cave-earth, or less
ancient deposit, commingled with remains of species un
doubtedly characteristic of it. Nevertheless, Messrs. Dawkins
and Sanford, impressed with the fact that, whatever its own
era may be, its zoological affinities are undoubtedly Pliocene,
and with the further fact that bones and teeth of bear have
in some cases been dislodged from the Breccia, or more
ancient deposit, and re-inhumed in the Cave-earth, or less
ancient accumulation, have suggested that possibly, and,
indeed, probably, the Machairodus teeth have undergone a
similar dislodgment and redeposition ; that, in short, the
species belonged to the fauna of the Breccia, but not to that
of the Cave-earth.
The following are the facts which appear to me to be fatal
to this hypothesis :—
1st. In some places animal remains formed fully 50 per
cent, of the entire mass of the Breccia, yet not a trace of
Machairodus was found amongst them,—a fact nothing short
of wonderful if the teeth under discussion were derived from it.
* See “Trans. Devon. Assoc.’’ vol. v. pp. 16-5-79; or “Quart. Journ.
Science,” vol. ii. N.S. pp. 204-23,
�GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY OF DEVONSHIRE.
33
2nd. The remains of the Breccia were more highly mineral
ized than those of the Cave-earth, and the teeth of Machai
rodus had the mineral condition characteristic of the less
ancient deposit, but not that of the more ancient. It will be
remembered that the Popular Science reviewer reminds me
that in teeth “ the layers of the enamel do not normally con
tain more than two per cent, of animal matter, and that the
dentine contains vastly less than the ordinary bones of bear.”
To this it is only necessary to reply that the teeth of Machairodus were compared, not with the ordinary bones, but with
the tectli, of bear. Indeed, the opinion that certain teeth and
bones of bear found in the Cave-earth had been derived from
the Breccia is based solely, but no doubt securely, on the fact
that they were highly mineralized; that they were identical,
in short, in this respect, with the remains met with in the
undisturbed Breccia, and differed from those usually found in
the Cave-earth. In other words, mineral condition was the
only test by which bones and teeth of Ursus spelccus derived
from the older deposit and redeposited in the less ancient,
could be distinguished from those of the same species pri
marily lodged in the latter.
3rd. It is admitted by all that the canines of Machairodus
have teeth-marks on their fangs,—a character which does not
occur on any tooth or bone found in the undisturbed Breccia
or known to be dislodged from it; a character, moreover,
which in all probability establishes the contemporaneity of
Machairodus and the bone-eating Hyaena spclaea, and thus
makes the former a member of the Cave-earth fauna to which
the latter exclusively belonged.
4th. The delicate denticulations which, as is well known,
characterize the teeth of Machairodus, are beautifully pre
served in all the Cavern specimens,—a fact not calculated to
excite surprise if they were found where they were primarily
entombed, but by no means harmonizing with the hypothesis
of dislodgement, transportation, and redeposition.
The Bev. A. G. L’Estrange’s “From the Thames to the
Tamar,”* contains the following passage on Kent’s Cavern :—
[Kent’s Cavern] “is said to be upwards of 600 feet in
length, and has many branches and ramifications. The en
trance is wild and wooded, such as it probably was when, at
some indefinitely distant period, it was the abode of the wild
animals whose bones are now embedded in the rock. There
are three distinct floors in the cavern ; in the first and latest
* “ From the Thames to the Tamar; A Summer on the South Coast.” By
the Rev. A. G. L’Estrange. London, 1873.
C
�34
NOTES ON RECENT NOTICES OF THE
are Saxon beads, and bones of foxes and badgers; in the next
those of lions, elks, wolves, hyaenas, elephants, and rhino
ceroses ; in the third and lowest those of bears, which, from
the size of their bones, must have been of the most formidable
proportions. There is also a nondescript animal found, some
thing between a lion and a bear. Mr. Evans states that some
remains of tigers have been found here—a rare discovery.
Some branches of the cavern seem to have been favourite
resorts for particular kinds of animals ; on one side lived the
elephants, on the other the wolves. Explorations have been
long carried on here. Before the year 1846 the cave was
open to the public, and the tradesmen of the town were in
the habit of breaking the stalactites and carrying off the
bones. From the year 1831, a Mr. MacEnery, a Roman
Catholic priest, greatly exerted himself in investigating the
locality, and made some valuable discoveries. After 1846 it
was closed, and came successively into the possession of the
Torquay Natural History Society and of the British Associa
tion ; the latter are still continuing the excavations. Our
guide, who was one of the workers, told us that each inch of
the formation represented 10,060 years, showing how much
his scientific occupation had enlarged his views ! There is
no very satisfactory theory with regard to these caves, of
'which there are several on this coast. . . . We can only sur
mise that the carnivorous animals dragged their prey after
them, and then, dying themselves, made way for a new race
of depredators. Flint knives are found intermingled with
the bones of extinct animals, and it is evident that at some
periods the cave was inhabited by men, little superior, perhaps,
to these beasts of prey. The fauna points to a great altera
tion in the climate, and to a very wild state of the country,
probably to the time when woods grew and mammoths ranged
over what is now Torbay, and when this island was connected
with the continent.”*
Though Mr. L’Estrange does not pretend that his is a
scientific work, it would be to be regretted if the numerous
topographical, historical, and archaeological statements which
occupy so great a portion of its 341 octavo pages were found
to be untrustworthy, leading the reader into error instead of
supplying him with interesting information. Without ventur
ing to give any opinion respecting its value on other topics,
it may be safely stated that its description of Kent’s Cavern
and its contents is by no means accurate.
1 hough geologists have no right to object to the statement
* Op. cit. pp. 313-4.
�GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY OF DEVONSHIRE.
35
that in the Cavern the “ bones of the wild animals are now
entombed i'n the rock,” seeing that they apply the term “rock”
to all substances which occupy definite spaces in the earth's crust
and exhibit a certain order of arrangement, whether they be
soft or stony there can be little doubt that the statement
*
would lead unscientific readers, those in fact for whom the
book was intended, to the conclusion that the mammalian
remains were emtombed, not in loose mud or loam, but in
coherent masses of rock in the popular acceptation of the term.
With regard to the number of “floors” in the Cavern;
instead of “ three,” they should be stated to be “ five ”—three
of mechanical origin separated from one another by two
chemical deposits ; the first, or uppermost, or latest, being
the Black Mould.; the second, Granular Stalagmite; the third,
Cave-Earth; the fourth, Crystalline Stalagmite; and the fifth,
or lowest, or earliest yet known, Breccia. It is usual, however,
to apply the name “ floor ” to the two stalagmites only. But
waiving this, and assuming that the three mechanical accumu
lations, those in which the osseous remains are chiefly found,
were alone alluded to by the author, it is true that a very few
beads, all of amber, were found in the first “ floor,” or black
mould, but it may be doubted whether the author is justified
in terming them Saxon beads, or referring them to Saxon times
or people.
“ Bones of foxes and badger” were undoubtedly found in
this “first floor,” but it is equally true that they were met
with also in the Cave-earth—the third of the five deposits,
or what the author probably termed the “ second floor.”
The “nondescript animal .... something between a lion
and bear,” mentioned by Mr. L’Estrange, was, of occurs, the
famous Machairodus latidcns, Owen ; but when he asserts
that “Mr. Evans states that some remains of tigers have
been found in the cavern,” there can be no doubt that he has
misunderstood the author he refers to. Air. Evans, after
giving a tabular list of the principal species of animals found
in the Cavern, remarks “To this may be added the Machairo
dus latidcns, or sabre-toothed tiger, of which one incisor and
five canines were discovered.............. by Air. MacEnery.d
There is no other passage to which allusion can have been
made ; but Mr. L’Estrange, misled by the word tiger, has
failed to detect in the great sabre-toothed felis, his “non
descript animal . . . something between a lion and bear.”
* See “Lyell’s Student’s Manual of Geology,” 1871, p. 2.
t “The Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments of Great
Britain. By John Evans, f.k s., f.s.a.” &c., London, 1872, p. 463.
�36
NOTES ON RECENT NOTICES OF TIIE
It is difficult to imagine where he obtained the amusing
piece of information that “some branches of the cavern seem
to have been favourite resorts for particular kinds of animals,
having on one side the elephants and on the other the wolves.”
In the first place, there is no reason to believe that elephants
or any other of the great herbivores ever lived in the Cavern.
I heir remains were probably lodged there through the agency
of hyienas, who dragged into their den portions of such
animals as they found dead in its vicinity. In the second
place, all branches of the Cavern in which remains of ele
phant have been met with, have yielded those of wolf also.
*
Mr. Mac Enery, unaware of the fact that the deposits he
found in different branches of the Cavern belonged to two
distinct eras, and contained remains representative of two
faunae, came to a somewhat similar conclusion; but his two
imaginary unsocial groups were not elephants and wolves,
but bears and hyaenas, f
lhe statement that “before the year 1846 the cave was
open to the public,” is no doubt intended to convey the idea
that it was first closed in that year. It was certainly under
lock and key in 1834 when I first visited it, and it has
remained so from that up to the present time. Mr. Northmore, the first who found bones in the Cavern, writing in
1832, remarks, somewhat complainingly, that in 1824 when
his first visit was made, there were “no bars, no locks, no
bolts, every one might enter the cave, explore if he pleased,
and return according to his will and pleasure
and he adds,
“not that I blame the owner Sir Lawrence Palk (since the
bones have become objects of sale), for closing the entrance.” {
Sir W. C. Trevelyan, Bart., F.G.S., one of the earliest explorers
of the Cavern, has been so good as to favour me with copies
of passages in letters sent him by the Rev. Dr. Buckland.
In one of these, dated “ Oxford, Nov. 14th, 1824,” Dr. Buck
land states his intention to visit Kent’s Hole in the following
January, “which,” he says, “will be soon enough, if in the
mean time Sir L. Palk walls up the cave.” In a later portion
of the same letter he says, “ I hope Sir Lawrence’s wall will
be got up as speedily as possible.” Sir W. C. Trevelyan says,
in his letter accompanying the copies, “ I had written to Sir
L. Palk, recommending him to put a door to the cave, to
prevent the indiscriminate and unscientific ransacking of the
* See
and 27;
f See
+ See
Edition,
Tables in “Reports of the British Association,” 1870, pp. 19, 24,
1871, pp. 4 and 9 ; 1872, pp. 31, 35, and 42.
“ trans. Devon. Assoc.” vol. iii. pp. 255-6.
“ the Panorama of Torquay. . . . By Octavian Blewitt.” Second
1832, p. 116; or “Trans. Devon. Assoc.” vol. iii. p. 483.
�GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY OF DEVONSHIRE.
37
contents, which were then going on, previous to Air. MacEnery
having entered on his researches. This I tell you to explain
a passage in one of I)r. Buckland’s letters.” As we know
that Mr. MacEnery began his systematic researches “at the
close of 1825,”* there can be little or no doubt that the door
had been put up by that time, and this receives some support
from the fact that in his subsequent letters, dated May 4th,
1825, May 23rd and Dec. 16th in the same year, Dr. Buck
land makes no mention of a wish to have the cavern closed.
Indeed, evidence of the Cavern being closed in 1825 or the
following year has recently reached me from America. Air.
William Alinifie, Professor of Alathematics, Baltimore, Alaryland, U.S.A., but formerly resident in Torquay, says, when
writing me on the Cavern, in November, 1873, “ Having had
the free use of the Cavern for so many years, people were
much dissatisfied at its being locked up, much grumbling
against Sir Lawrence Palk was the consequence: I believe
the gate was several times broken open. In the summer of
1825 or 26 a party of four of us wished to visit the Cavern.
. . . . I endeavoured to get the key from Air. George Pearce
. . . . Sir Lawrence Palk’s factotum, but could not find him,
so we walked out in hopes to find the gate open.” There can
be no doubt, therefore, that in 1825 or 1826 at latest the
Cavern ceased to be open to all comers, that is fully 20 years
before the date given by Air. L’Estrange.
The author is incorrect also in stating that Air. AlacEnery
commenced his researches in 1831, the real date being 1825,
as already stated.
It is, perhaps, impossible to say whether Air. L’Estrange
misunderstood the guide’s statement respecting the chronology
of the deposits, nor are there any means of ascertaining on
what the statement, if made, was based. “ That each inch
of the formation represented 10,000 years,” is an estimate
greatly exceeding any which has reached me from any other
quarter. For myself, I am content with the modest hypothesis
of 5,000 years for each inch of the stalagmites, and am willing
to suppose the mechanical deposits to have accumulated more
rapidly. It must be admitted that the author had some reason
for supposing that the guide’s “ scientific occupation had en
larged his views.”
VIII. THE SUBMERGED FOREST OF TORBAY.
The Bev. AV. S. Symonds has the following remarks, in his
* See “Trans. Devon. Assoc.’’ vol. iii. p. 444.
�38
NOTES ON RECENT NOTICES OF THE
“ Records of the Rocks,” respecting the Submerged Forest of
Torbay:—“ The waters of Torbay roll over the site of a sub
merged forest which extends seaward for a considerable dis
tance. The remains of the Mammoth, with those of the Bos
longifrons, have been found between Torquay and Torbay in
forest peats. It is very doubtful, however, whether the
Mammoth remains are not derived from some more ancient
deposits. There is no good evidence that this animal lived
up to the period of the submerged forests.”*
The allusion to the Mammoth in the foregoing paragraph,
is to a left lower molar, now in the Museum of the Torquay
Natural History Society, and is the only relic of that animal
which the Torbay forest is known to have yielded. It has
been identified by Professor Owen and the late Dr. Falconer,
and mentioned by several authors. The statements just quoted
render it desirable to bring together, and place on record, all
that is known respecting the locality in which it was found,
the evidence that it belonged to the Submerged forest, and
the era of the species.
1st. As conflicting statements have appeared from time to
time respecting the locality in which this interesting specimen
was met with, and as it is not easy to say what is meant by
“ between Torquay and Torbay,” it may be as well to state the
facts of the case, which are as follow:—Mr. C. E. Parker, of
Torquay, being one day at Brixham harbour, observed the
molar as it was brought ashore by some trawl fishermen, who
informed him that they had dredged it up in their trawl, a
little within and on the southern side of Torbay. From the
situation, it must have been in fully five fathoms water; and
this is confirmed by the depth required for trawl fishing. Mr.
Parker at once purchased the tooth, and presented it to the
Torquay Natural History Society, of which he was a member.
2nd. That it is a true Submerged forest specimen is
admitted by Air. Godwin-Austen, Dr. Falconer, and Sir
Charles Lyell ;f all of whom have studied it and called atten
tion to it. It has been remarked by Dr. Falconer that “it is
exceedingly fresh-looking, with a slight tinge of smut, as if it
had lain in a peat-bed t and that “the surface is entirely
free from any incrustation of marine Polvzoa, with which it
must have got covered had it lain long at the bottom of the
sea.§ To this I would add, that it has not a trace of abrasion,
• Op. cit , p. 292.
+ See “Quart. Journ. Geol Soc’’ Lond. vol. vii. p. 131, 1851; “Nat.
Hist. Rev.” vol. iii. p. 68, 1863;” “Principles of Geology, 11th ed. vol. i.
p. 549, 1872; and “Antiquity of Man,” 4th ed. pp. 398 and 415, 1873.
j “Nat. llist. Rev.” vol. iii. p. 68.
§ Ibid.
�GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY OF DEVONSHIRE.
39
r»*»Fw
which in all probability would not have been the case had it
been a redeposited fossil. Sir C. Lyell observes that its fresh
condition is “probably due to the antiseptic quality of the
peat.”*
3rd. It must be unnecessary to remark that the conclusion
to which we have just been led, is itself a reply to the author’s
statement, that “ there is no good evidence that this animal
lived up to the period of the submerged forests;” and as such
it is understood by all the authors already mentioned : Thus,
I)r. Falconer says, “ This [Torbay] peat-bed indicates a
subsidence of the land in Devonshire, then peopled with
Elephants, of a very modern date, and long subsequent to
the period of the raised beach, which is so boldly developed
along that part of the coast;”} and according to Sir C. Lyell,
“The specimen [the Torbay molar] is interesting as serving
to establish the fact that the Mammoth survived when the
surface of this region had already acquired its present con
figuration, so far as relates to the direction and depth of the
valleys in the bottom of one of which the peat alluded to . . .
was found.”}
Nor is the Torbay molar a solitary “find;” for in 1849 two
perfect heads of the Mammoth were found in a forest at
Holyhead, of which Sir C. Lyell says, “ It is not improbable
that these Mammoths survived most of the lost species which
were their contemporaries in what has been called the Cavern
period.” §
Again, and within our own county, in 1809, 1871, and
1872, Mr. P. 0. Hutchinson laid before the Devonshire
Association, molars of Mammoth cast up by the waves on
Sidmouth beach; in 1872 he also produced an unusually
large molar of the same species, found in the Sid, by a young
man wading up the bed of the river in search of lampreys;
and in July, 1873, he read to the same body a paper on
“ Submerged Forest and Mammoth Teeth at Sidmouth,” when
he described a series of carefully observed facts connected
with a Submerged forest laid bare on Sidmouth beach, by the
gales of the preceding winter, which “had never been seen
before within the memory of living man,” and in which were
found four Mammoth’s molars.||
The foregoing well-established facts render it, at least,
extremely difficult to believe that “ there is no good evidence
*
f
j
II
and
“Principles of Geolo ~y,” 11th ed. vol. i. p. 519.
“Nat. Hist. Rev.” vol. iii. p. 68.
Op. cit. p. 549.
§ Ibid, p. 550.
See “Trans. Devon. Assoc.” vol. iii. p. 143, iv. p 455, v. pp 39-40,
vi. pp. 232- 5.
�40
NOTES ON RECENT NOTICES OF TIIE
that the Mammoth lived up to the period of the submerged
forests.” What may be the era of the forests themselves is a
question on which it seems at present only possible to say
that they are more modern than the mammoth-bearing Cave
earth of Devonshire.
It is almost amusing to find one’s self contending that the
Mammoth had not become extinct before the growth of the
forests now submerged on our coasts, at the very time that
the editors of the “Zoologist”* and of the Standard news
paper are calling attention to an article, by a correspondent
of the New York World, to the effect that an escaped Russian
convict, named Cheriton, has just discovered in a valley,
150 miles long and 50 miles wide, near the River Lena, from
15 to 20 living Mammoths, each about 18 feet long, 12 feet
high, with tusks projecting 4 feet, and measuring from 8 to
10 feet along the curve. They were all aged, very peaceable
animals, and torpid as old oxen; nevertheless one of them
was seen to engage in a battle, of an hour’s duration, with
an aquatic Saurophidian, 38 feet long and armed with scales
as well as horrible fangs, and occupying a blue lake in the
valley. The battle ended in the discomfiture of the Mam
moth, which could hardly limp off after the contest.! Being
myself connected with the continent to which Cheriton, the
Mammoths, and the Saurophidian belong, I cannot but feel
hurt that a newspaper in another continent, in short an
American paper, was selected as the medium for making
known so important a discovery.
* See “The Zoologist,” October 1873, pp. 3731 -3.
f See “The Mammoth still living,” in The Zoologist for October, 1873,
2nd series, vol. viii. pp. 3731-3.
�
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Notes on recent notices of the geology and palaeontology of Devonshire
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Pengelly, William
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Place of publication: [Torquay]
Collation: 40 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Read at Teignmouth, July 1874. Inscription on front page: 'M.D. Conway with the author's kind regards'. Includes bibliographical references.
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Conway Tracts
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Geology
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