The Wellington Valley Caves were discovered by Sir Thomas Mitchell more than 50 years ago. From them no fewer than 2,100 specimens of fossil remains were presented to the British Museum. When the result of the exploration was forwarded to Professor Owen, he said that the conclusion was very much what might have been naturally looked for, and that the only disappointment he felt was the absence of human remains and works. Ten years ago an attempt was made to obtain the co-operation of the neighbouring colonies in the work of thoroughly exploring the caves of the western and southern districts and Australian rivers. The proposition originated with the Agent-General for New South Wales, Professor Owen, and Sir George Macleay, but the adjacent colonies did not see their way to participate, whereupon our Cabinet decided to do the work without extraneous aid, and £600 was voted by Parliament for the service of 1882. At an earlier stage Professor Liversidge had written to the Colonial Secretary, transmitting the following extract from a letter he had received from Professor Boyd Dawkins, M.A., F.R.S., of Owens College, Manchester:—"Would the Government of New South Wales undertake the systematic exploration of the wonderful caves which are in the colony, and which certainly ought to be explored? Not only is there a certainty of adding to the great marsupials which have been obtained, but there is a great chance of finding proof that man was living at the same time as the extinct animals, as he has already been found in Europe and Asia. I should expect to find a very low form of the aborigine. Such an inquiry would be of a very great interest to us here in England, who are digging at the caves all over Europe, and the duplication which would be obtained would enable the trustees of the Australian Museum to increase their collections largely by exchanges."
The minutes of the meetings of the trustees of the Australian Museum show that in 1881 a committee, consisting of Dr. Cox, Mr. Wilkinson, and Professor Liversidge, was appointed for the management of the exploration of caves and rivers, and it was decided that the following caves should, if possible, be examined in the order as written:—Wellington Caves, Cowra, or Belubula Caves, Abercrombie, Wollombi, Fish River (now Jenolan), Wombeyan, Wallerawang, Cargo, Yarrangobilly, Murrumbidgee, Kempsey. The Goodradigbee caves were also included, and from them was taken a great quantity of bones of small animals, with a number of jaw, thigh, hip, and shin bones of some animals of the kangaroo family. The smaller bones were those of mice, bats, birds, and marsupials. In the Wellington breccia cave a shaft was sunk, and on the 20th September, 1881, Mr. E. P. Ramsay, curator of the Museum, reported, among other things, the following:—"A great number of interesting bones have already been obtained from this shaft, but the mass of 35 feet of bone breccia which we passed through shows that we have here a large field for exploration. From this shaft we have obtained bones of the following animals, besides a great number of small bones yet undetermined—Diprotodon, macropus, palorchestes, sthenurus, procoptodon, protemnodon, halmaturus, thylacinus, bettongia, sarcophilus, phascolomys, dasyurus, phalangista, pteropus (?), bats, rodents (mus), a few lizards' bones, and a few vertebræ of lizards and snakes."
Other caves also were explored, but it was found that the bones obtained from them were of recent origin. It is a question whether it would not be desirable to make still further investigations. The osseous breccia—where it exists—appears to be similar in all the caves. There are rifts and pits and chambers where animals have retired to die, and where from time to time their bones have been formed into cement with the liquefied rock, which in process of time has again hardened and become a solid compound of bone and stone.
In the southern room on the first floor of the Sydney Museum is a large collection of bones from the Wellington and other caves. These remains have been collected during the last four or five years under the direction of Mr. Ramsay, the curator. They are chiefly the bones of marsupials. There are not among them any fossil remains which indicate the presence of man in Australia at any very remote period. Some of the principal bones are those of extinct marsupials, and are important from a scientific point of view. They include bones of the following animals (species extant) found in the Wellington caves:—The thylacinus (Tasmanian tiger), sarcophilus (Tasmanian devil), mastacomys (a rodent), hapalotis albipes, and mus lineatus (New South Wales). Other important fossil remains in the Museum are those of the thylacoleo (two species), diprotodon, procoptodon, protemnodon, palorchestes, macropus titan, nototherium, phascolomys. There are not in the Sydney Museum any bones from the Jenolan Caves—which, however, contain many interesting remains of the animal world,—because the search for them would involve the destruction of attractive features. For these reasons attention was given to the Wellington Caves, whose beauties were not likely to receive further disfiguration than they have already suffered.
From the Wallaby Bone Cave the visitor returns to the Fossil Bone Cave, and ascends a wire ladder which is about to be replaced by an iron staircase. As he mounts this wire-rope ladder, which is 76 feet long and not "stayed," he feels the necessity for some better means of communication. From the top to the Cathedral is about 25 yards south-east. A large portion of the cave north-west from this point has not been explored. There are five or six different branches, one of which runs out to daylight at a small aperture (14 inches by 18 inches) over the rise of the water below the Grand Archway and the Devil's Coach House. The distance from here through the Cathedral to the entrance gate is about 70 yards, up two flights of steps. There is a gradual ascent to the steps, and the final flight of 41 brings the excursionist to the gate and to the sunshine. He will be glad to rest awhile before entering the Imperial Cave, which is the grandest of them all.
