The Prehistoric World; Or, Vanished RacesAllen, Emory Adams
History
The Prehistoric World; Or, Vanished Races
Allen, Emory Adams
Archaeology; Indians; Prehistoric peoples
One of the most important caves of England is Kent’s Cavern,
before mentioned. This cave was carefully explored under the
direction of a committee appointed by the British Association,
and to show the care and thoroughness of the work we need only
state that this work occupied the greater portion of sixteen
years, and hence the results obtained may be regarded as, in a
general way, illustrative of the life of the cave dwellers. “This
cave is about a mile east of Torquay harbor, and is of a sinuous
character, running deeply into a hill of Devonian limestone,
about half a mile distant from the sea. In places it expands into
large chambers, to which various distinctive names have been
given.”3
Let us see what general results have been reached by this
committee. The investigation disclosed several different beds of
stalagmite, cave earth, and breccia. The lowest layer is a
breccia.4 The matrix is sand of a reddish color, containing many
pieces of rock known as red-grit and some pieces of quartz. This
implies the presence of running water, which at times washed in
pieces of red-grit. The surface features must have been quite
different from the present, since now this rock does not form any
part of the hill into which this cave opens.5And this change in
drainage took place before this lowest layer was completed, since
not only bears, but men, commenced to visit the cave. The
presence of bears is shown by numerous bones, and that of man by
his implements.
Spear-head—Lower Breccia, Kent’s Cavern.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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