KENT’S CAVERN, or Kent’s Hole, the largest of English bone caves, famous as affording evidence of the existence of Man in Devon (England) contemporaneously with animals now extinct or no longer indigenous. It is about a mile east of Torquay harbour and is of a sinuous nature, running deeply into a hill of Devonian limestone. Although long known locally, it was not until 1825 that it was scientifically examined by Rev. J. McEnery, who found worked flints in intimate association with the bones of extinct mammals. He recognized the fact that they proved the existence of man in Devonshire while those animals were alive, but the idea was too novel to be accepted by his contemporaries. His discoveries were afterwards verified by Godwin Austen, and ultimately by the Committee of the British Association, whose explorations were carried on under the guidance of Wm. Pengelly from 1865 to 1880. There are four distinct strata in the cave. (1) The surface is composed of dark earth and contains medieval remains, Roman pottery and articles which prove that it was in use during the Iron, Bronze and Neolithic Ages. (2) Below this is a stalagmite floor, varying in thickness from 1 to 3 ft., and covering (3) the red earth which contained bones of the hyaena, lion, mammoth, rhinoceros and other animals, in association with flint implements and an engraved antler, which proved man to have been an inhabitant of the cavern during its deposition. Above this and below the stalagmite there is in one part of the cave a black band from 2 to 6 in. thick, formed of soil like No. 2, containing charcoal, numerous flint implements, and the bones and teeth of animals, the latter occasionally perforated as if used for ornament. (4) Filling the bottom of the cave was a hard breccia, with the remains of bears and flint implements, the latter in the main ruder than those found above; in some places it was no less than 12 ft. thick. The most remarkable animal remains found in Kent’s Cavern are those of the Sabre-toothed tiger, Machairodus latidens of Sir Richard Owen. While the value of McEnery’s discoveries was in dispute the exploration of the cave of Brixham near Torquay in 1858 proved that man was coeval with the extinct mammalia, and in the following year additional proof was offered by the implements that were found in Wookey Hole, Somerset. Similar remains have been met with in the caves of Wales, and in England as far north as Derbyshire (Cresswell), proving that over the whole of southern and middle England men, in precisely the same stage of rude civilization, hunted the rhinoceros, the mammoth and other extinct animals.

See Sir John Evans, Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain (London, 1897); Lord Avebury’s Prehistoric Times (1900); W. Pengelly, Address to the British Association (1883) and Life of him by his daughter (1897); Godwin Austen, Proc. Geo. Soc. London, 111. 286; Pengelly, “Literature of Kent’s Cavern” in Trans. Devonshire Association (1868); William Boyd Dawkins, Cave-hunting and Early Man in Britain.

KENTUCKY, a South Central State of the United States of America, situated between 36° 30′ and 39° 6′ N., and 82° and 89° 38′ W. It is bounded N., N.W., and N.E. by Illinois, Indiana and Ohio; E. by the Big Sandy river and its E. fork, the Tug, which separates it from West Virginia, and by Virginia; S.E. and S. by Virginia and Tennessee; and W. by the Mississippi river, which separates it from Missouri. It has an area of 40,598 sq. m.; of this, 417 sq. m., including the entire breadth of the Ohio river, over which it has jurisdiction, are water surface.

Physiography.—From mountain heights along its eastern border the surface of Kentucky is a north-western slope across two much dissected plateaus to a gracefully undulating lowland in the north central part and a longer western slope across the same plateaus to a lower and more level lowland at the western extremity. The narrow mountain belt is part of the western edge of the Appalachian Mountain Province in which parallel ridges of folded mountains, the Cumberland and the Pine, have crests 2000-3000 ft. high, and the Big Black Mountain rises to 4000 ft. The highest point in the state is The Double on the Virginia state line, in the eastern part of Harlan county with an altitude of over 4100 ft. The entire eastern quarter of the state, coterminous with the Eastern Kentucky coal-field, is commonly known as the region of the “mountains,” but with the exception of the narrow area just described it properly belongs to the Alleghany Plateau Province. This plateau belt is exceedingly rugged with sharp ridges alternating with narrow valleys which have steep sides but are seldom more than 1500 ft. above the sea. The remainder of the state which lies east of the Tennessee river is divided into the Highland Rim Plateau and a lowland basin, eroded in the Highland Rim Plateau and known as the Blue Grass Region; this region is separated from the Highland Rim Plateau by a semicircular escarpment extending from Portsmouth, Ohio, at the mouth of the Scioto river, to the mouth of the Salt river below Louisville; it is bounded north by the Ohio river. The Highland Rim Plateau, lying to the south, east and west of the escarpment, embraces fully one-half of the state, slopes from elevations of 1000-1200 ft. or more in the east to about 500 ft. in the north-west, and is generally much less rugged than the Alleghany Plateau; a peculiar feature of the southern portion of it is the numerous circular depressions (sink holes) in the surface and the cavernous region beneath. Kentucky is noted for its caves, the best-known of which are Mammoth Cave and Colossal Cavern (qq.v.). The caves are cut in the beds of limestone (lying immediately below the coal-bearing series) by streams that pass beneath the surface in the “sink holes,” and according to Professor N. S. Shaler there are altogether “doubtless a hundred thousand miles of ways large enough to permit the easy passage of man.” Down the steep slopes of the escarpment the Highland Rim Plateau drops 200 ft. or more to the famous Blue Grass Region, in which erosion has developed on limestone a gracefully undulating surface. This Blue Grass Region is like a beautiful park, without ragged cliffs, precipitous slopes, or flat marshy bottoms, but marked by rounded hills and dales. Especially within a radius of 20 m. around Lexington, the country is clothed with an unusually luxuriant vegetation. During spring, autumn, and winter in particular, the blue-grass (Poa compressa and Poa pratensis) spreads a mat, green, thick, fine and soft, over much of the country, and it is a good winter pasture; about the middle of June it blooms, and, owing to the hue of its seed vessels, gives the landscape a bluish hue. Another lowland area embraces that small part of the state in the extreme south-east which lies west of the Tennessee river; this belongs to that part of the Coastal Plain Region which extends north along the Mississippi river; it has in Kentucky an average elevation of less than 500 ft. Most of the larger rivers of the state have their sources among the mountains or on the Alleghany Plateau and flow more or less circuitously in a general north-western direction into the Ohio. Although deep river channels are common, falls or impassable rapids are rare west of the Alleghany Plateau, and the state has an extensive mileage of navigable waters. The Licking, Kentucky, Green and Tradewater are the principal rivers wholly within the state. The Cumberland, after flowing for a considerable distance in the south-east and south central part of the state, passes into Tennessee at a point nearly south of Louisville, and in the extreme south-west the Cumberland and the Tennessee, with only a short distance between them, cross Kentucky and enter the Mississippi at Smithland and Paducah respectively. The drainage of the region under which the caverns lie is mostly underground.

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Fauna and Flora.—The first white settlers found great numbers of buffaloes, deer, elks, geese, ducks, turkeys and partridges, also many bears, panthers, lynx, wolves, foxes, beavers, otters, minks, musk-rats, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, woodchucks, opossums and skunks, and the streams were inhabited by trout, perch, buffalo-fish, sun-fish, mullet, eels, and suckers. Of the larger game there remain only a few deer, bears and lynx in the mountain districts, and the numbers of small game and fish have been greatly reduced. In its primeval state Kentucky was generally well timbered, but most of the middle section has been cleared and here the blue grass is now the dominant feature of the flora. Extensive forest areas still remain both in the east and the west. In the east oak, maple, beech, chestnut, elm, tulip-tree (locally “yellow poplar”), walnut, pine and cedar trees are the most numerous; in the west the forests are composed largely of cypress, ash, oak, hickory, chestnut, walnut, beech, tulip-tree, gum and sycamore trees. Locust, pawpaw, cucumber, buck-eye, black mulberry and wild cherry trees also abound, and the grape, raspberry and strawberry are native fruits.

Climate.—The climate is somewhat more mild and even than that of the neighbouring states. The mean annual temperature, about 50° F. on the mountains in the S.E., and 60° W. of the Tennessee, is about 55° F. for the entire state; the thermometer seldom registers as high as 100° or as low as -10°. The mean annual precipitation ranges from about 38 in. in the north-east to 50 in. in the south, and is about 46 in. for the entire state; it is usually distributed evenly throughout the year and very little is in the form of snow. The prevailing winds blow from the west or south-west; rain-bearing winds blow mostly from the south; and the cold waves come from the north or north-west.

Soil.—The best soils are the alluvium in the bottom-lands along some of the larger rivers and that of the Blue Grass Region, which is derived from a limestone rich in organic matter (containing phosphorus) and rapidly decomposing. The soil within a radius of some 20 m. around Lexington is especially rich; outside of this area the Blue Grass soil is less rich in phosphorus and contains a larger mixture of sand. The soils of the Highland Rim Plateau as well as of the lowland west of the Tennessee river vary greatly, but the most common are a clay, containing more or less carbonate of lime, and a sandy loam. On the escarpment around the Blue Grass Region the soils are for the most part either cherty or stiff with clay and of inferior quality. On the mountains and on the Alleghany Plateau, also, much of the soil is very light and thin.