In 1847 M. Boucher de Perthes described certain rude flint implements that he obtained from the fluviatile gravels of Abbeville (“Antiquités Celtiques,” vol. i.), along with the bones of extinct animals; and his discovery was treated with the same scepticism in France as that of the Rev. J. McEnery in England, although it was verified by flint implements being discovered, under exactly the same conditions, in the gravels of Amiens, some forty miles away, by Dr. Rigollot.[11] In the autumn of 1858, Dr. Falconer, who had been superintending the work in the Brixham cave, visited the collection made by M. de Perthes, while on his way to examine the caves of Sicily, and recognizing man’s handiwork in the implements, he asked his friend Mr. Prestwich to explore the Valley of the Somme. This he accordingly did, and in company with Mr. John Evans, F.R.S., dug out with his own hands an implement from the undisturbed strata,[12] and thus finally settled the disputed question. It is undoubtedly true, that scientific opinion was tending towards the acceptance of the evidence in favour of man having lived in Europe in the Pleistocene age; but the researches in Brixham cave established the fact on the highest possible authority, and confirmed the long-neglected discoveries in the valley of the Somme. By the end of 1859 it was fully accepted by the scientific world, and caused the exploration of caves to be carried on with increased vigour. In December 1859,[13] I began the exploration of the hyæna-den of Wookey Hole, near Wells, Somerset, in company with the Rev. J. Williamson, and obtained flint instruments along with the remains of the mammoth, hyæna, woolly rhinoceros, and other animals, under conditions that proved the contemporaneity of man with the extinct mammalia. And from that time down to the present date I have carried on researches in caves in various parts of Great Britain. In the district of Gower also, many ossiferous caverns were investigated, in 1858-9-60-1 by Colonel Wood and Dr. Falconer, and in one of them flint implements were obtained along with the bones of the extinct mammalia.[14] Kent’s Hole, begun in 1865 by the British Association, and still being worked, furnishes annually a vast number of bones and teeth of hyænas, rhinoceroses, cave-bears, and horses, and other animals, along with flint and bone implements.[15] In 1869 I had the good fortune to discover, and subsequently to explore, a group of sepulchral caves in Denbighshire, which had been used by an Iberian or Basque race in the Neolithic age (Chapter V.); and in the following year the Settle Cave Committee began their work in Yorkshire under my advice. And this has led to the important conclusion, that a group of caves, extending over a wide area in the centre and north of England, was occupied by the Brit-Welsh in the obscure interval which elapsed between the departure of the Roman legions and the English conquest.