“Looking at all the phenomena of Brixham cave, the conclusion your reporter has arrived at is, that the formation of the cave commenced and was carried on simultaneously with the excavation of the valley; that the small streams flowing down the upper tributary branches of the valley entered the western openings of the cave and, traversing the fissures in the limestone, escaped by lower openings in the chief valley, just as the Grotto d’Arcy was formed by an overflow from the cave taking a short cut through the limestone hills, round which the river winds. These tributary streams brought in the shingle bed (Fig. 95, C), which fills the bottom of the fissure. It was only during occasional droughts, when the streams were dry, that the cave seems to have been frequented by animals, their remains being very scarce in that bed, while indications of man are comparatively numerous. As the excavation of the valley proceeded, the level of the stream was lowered and became more restricted to the valley-channel. The cave consequently became drier, and was more resorted to by predatory animals, who carried in their prey to devour, and was less frequented by man. At the same time with the periodical floods, which there is every reason to believe, from other investigations, were so great during the quaternary period, the cave would long continue to be subject to inundations, the muddy waters of which deposited the silt forming the cave-earth, burying progressively the bones left from season to season by succeeding generations of beasts of prey. By the repetition at distant intervals of these inundations, and by the accumulation during the intervening periods of fresh crops of bones, the bone-bearing cave-earth, B, was gradually formed. During this time the occasional visits of man are indicated by the rare occurrence of a flint implement, lost, probably, as he groped his way through the dark passages of the cave. As the valley became deeper, and as with the change of climate at the close of the (pleistocene) quaternary period the floods became less, so did the cave become drier and more resorted to by animals. At last it seems to have become a place for permanent resort for bears; their remains in all stages of growth, including even sucking cubs, were met with in the upper part of the cave-earth, in greater numbers than were the bones of any other animals. These animals resorted especially to the darker and more secluded flint-knife gallery, where 221 out of 366 of their determinable bones were found, whereas only twenty-six were met with in the reindeer gallery.