The Uphill Cave.
The Cave of Uphill,[194] discovered in 1826, by some workmen, and explored by the Rev. D. Williams, merits especial notice, from the peculiar conditions under which the remains of the extinct animals occurred. Like the other caves of the Mendips, it consists of fissures opening into chambers. In the upper part of one of these fissures were the remains of rhinoceros, hyæna, bear, horse, bison, and wild boar, imbedded in loam which rested on two large masses of limestone that had fallen so as to block up the fissure. Below this were no remains of the extinct animals, and the fissure ultimately led into a cave opening upon the line of cliffs. This latter had been inhabited within historic times, since many bones of sheep, or goat, and pieces of pottery, were met with, as well as a coin of the Emperor Julian. In this case, owing to the extraordinary accident of the fissure being blocked up by a fall of stone, the pleistocene accumulation is vertically above the historic; and had the barrier given way, Mr. Williams would undoubtedly have discovered the remains of the extinct mammalia, lying in a heap above the comparatively modern historic stratum. It seems to me very probable that some such accident may have caused the occurrence of the pleiocene machairodus in the Kent’s Hole cavern, in association with the pleistocene mammalia. In the long lapse of ages between the pleistocene and the present day, such accidents would be likely to occur in some few caverns, and we might expect to find remains of widely different ages, in certain exceptional cases, lying side by side, or even the older resting vertically over the newer. At all events we must conclude, that superposition, or association, cannot be rigidly enforced as tests of relative age in all ossiferous caverns.
The Hyæna-den of Wookey Hole.
The Hyæna-den of Wookey Hole,[195] near Wells, on the south side of the Mendips, which I explored with the Rev. J. Williamson in 1859, and in the following years with Messrs. Willett, Parker, and Ayshford Sanford, is worthy of a more detailed notice, because it was among the first caverns in this country in which works of art were found under conditions that proved the co-existence of man with the extinct mammalia.
The ravine in which it was discovered, in 1852, is one of the many which pierce the dolomitic conglomerate, or petrified sea-beach, of the Triassic age, resting at the foot of the cliffs from which it was torn by the waves, and overlying the lower slopes of the Mendips (see [Fig. 1]). Open to the south, it runs almost horizontally into the mountain-side, until closed abruptly northwards by a perpendicular wall of rock, 200 feet or more in height, ivy-covered, and affording a dwelling-place to innumerable jackdaws. Out of a cave at its base, in which Dr. Buckland discovered pottery and human teeth, flows the river Axe, in a canal cut in the rock. In cutting this passage, that the water might be conveyed to a large paper-mill close by, the mouth of the hyæna-den was intersected in 1852, and from that time up to December 1859 it was undisturbed save by rabbits and badgers, and even they did not penetrate far into the interior, or make deep burrows. Close to the mouth of the cave the workmen (employed in making this canal) found more than 300 Roman coins, among which were those of Allectus and of Commodus. When the Rev. J. Williamson and myself began our exploration, about twelve feet of the entrance of the cave had been cut away, and large quantities of the earth, stones, and animal remains had been used in the formation of an embankment for the stream which runs past the present entrance of the cave.
According to the testimony of the workmen, the bones and teeth formed a layer about twelve inches in thickness, which rested immediately upon the conglomerate-floor, while they were comparatively scarce in the overlying mass of stones and red earth. The workmen state also that at the time of the discovery of the cave the hillside presented no concavity to mark its presence. So completely was the cave filled with débris up to the very roof, that we were compelled to cut our way into it. Of the stones scattered irregularly through the matrix of red earth, some were angular, others water-worn; all are derived from the decomposition of the dolomitic conglomerate in which the cave is hollowed. Near the entrance, and at a depth of five feet from the roof, were three layers of peroxide of manganese, full of bony splinters, and, passing obliquely up towards the southern side of the cave and over a ledge of rock that rises abruptly from the floor: further inwards they became interblended one with another, and at a distance of fifteen feet from the entrance were barely visible. In and between these the animal remains were found in the greatest abundance.
Fig. 83.—Plan of Hyæna-den at Wookey Hole.
Right lines = sections; dotted areas = bone-beds; shaded areas = ashes and implements.
While cutting our way inwards ([Figs. 83] and [88]), we found an angular piece of flint, which had evidently been chipped by human agency, and a water-worn fragment of a belemnite, which probably had been derived from the neighbouring marlstone rocks. Bones and teeth of the woolly rhinoceros, reindeer, stag, Irish elk, mammoth, hyæna, cave-bear, lion, wolf, fox, and horse rewarded our labours; and frogs’ remains, cemented together by stalagmite, were abundant at the mouth. The teeth preponderated greatly over the bones, and the great bulk were those of the horse. The hyæna-teeth also were very numerous, and in all stages of growth, from the young unworn to the old tooth worn down to the very gums. Those of the mammoth had belonged to a young animal, and one had not been used at all. The hollow bones were completely smashed and splintered, and scored with tooth-marks, while the solid carpal, tarsal, and sesamoid bones were uninjured, as in the Kirkdale Cave. The organic remains were in all stages of decay, some crumbling to dust at the touch, while others were perfectly preserved and had lost very little of their gelatine.