PLATE 45: INTERIOR OF THE CAVERN CONTAINING OSSEOUS BRECCIA AT WELLINGTON VALLEY. Major T.L. Mitchell. Day and Haghe Lithographers to the Queen.
London, Published by T. and W. Boone.
From the second landing-place we descended through a narrow passage between the solid rock on one side and huge fragments chiefly supported by breccia on the other, the roof being also formed of the latter and the floor of loose earth and stones.
SMALL CAVITY AND STALAGMITIC CRUST.
We then reached a small cavern ending in several fissures choked up with the breccia. One of these crevices (K. Plate 44) terminated in an oven-shaped opening in the solid rock (Plate 50) and was completely filled in the lower part with soft red earth which formed also the floor in front of it and resembled that in the large cavern already described. Osseous breccia filled the upper part of this small recess and portions of it adhered to the sides and roof adjoining, as if this substance had formerly filled the whole cavity. At about three feet from the floor of this cavity (Plate 50) the breccia was separated from the loose earth below by three layers of stalagmitic concretion, each about two inches thick and three apart; and they appeared to be only the remains of layers once of greater extension, as fragments of stalagmite adhered to the sides of the cavity as shown in Plate 50. The spaces between what remained of these layers were filled with red ochreous matter and bones embedded partially in the stalagmite. Those in the lower sides of the layers were most thickly encrusted with tuffaceous matter; those in the upper surfaces on the contrary were very white and free from the red ferruginous ochre which filled the cavities of those in the breccia, although they contained minute transparent crystals of carbonate of lime.
TEETH FOUND IN THE FLOOR.
On digging (at K) into the soft red earth forming the floor of this recess, some fragments of bone, apparently heavier than those in the breccia, were found, and one portion seemed to have been gnawed by a small animal. We obtained also in this earth the last phalange of the greatest toe of a kangaroo, and a small water-worn pebble of quartz. By creeping about 15 feet under a mass of solid rock which left an opening less than a foot and a half above the floor, we reached a recess about 15 feet high and 12 feet wide (L). The floor consisted of dry red earth and, on digging some feet down, we found fragments of bones, a very large kangaroo tooth (Figure 6 Plate 47) a large tooth of an unknown animal (Figures 4 and 5 Plate 51) and one resembling some fragments of teeth found in the breccia. (See Figures 6, 7, 8, and 9, Plate 51.)
A THIRD CAVERN.
We next examined a third cave about 100 yards to the westward of the last described. The entrance, like that of the first, was tolerably easy, but the descent over the limestone rocks was steeper and very moist and slimy. Our progress downwards was terminated by water which probably communicated with the river Bell, as its level was much lower when the cave was first visited during a dry season. I found very pure iron ochre in some of the fissures of this cavern but not a fragment of bone.