The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1878-10-01
ANTIQUITY OF MAN,

~ ia bao4tb VI jill
are two celebrated caves, one situated |,
the outskirts Of the village BRIGHAM, Ii,
other similarly located in the beautiful tow,
forquay. In both cases these cayerns ex
tend into the hills upon whose slopes the,
ere situated five to six hundred feet. III,
chambers and galleries being very large
,ortuous, and irregular. The cave a
Erixham, the mouth of which was com
pletely closed by debris. when accidenti,
discovered some years since WINS most care
,uiiy explored under the auspices Of tn,
loyal Geological Society, which appointed
tho able g~eologist Mr.. PeneelIy to person
ally supervise the operation. The cayerr
at Torquay, known as " Keats cavern is
now being similarly explored by carefully
removing its contents, amounting to many
thousands OF tons, under the same eminen,
management. -rE
The similarity in the contents and reyela.
lions OF these caverns is remarkable. Con.
aning our attention to that at Toruuay,
shich Is the more recent and important In
~ disclosures, its floor is found to be com.
pcsed, first, Of q layer from two to twelve
inches thick Of decayed leaves and Other
vegetable matter commingled with dust and
fragments of limestone which have fallen
from the sides and roof of the cavern.
Under this stratum Of black mold and
-ometimes pccring up through it is an ex.
'ensive noor OF granular stalagmite or quite
pure carbonate of lime varying in thickness
rom q few inches to over five feet. Be.
heath the granular ~stalagmitc and at a dis.
lance of about forty feet from the entrance
TO the cavern occurs q stratum of charcoal.
ashes, bones, and fragments Of wood Gov.
ering an area Of over onc hundred square
tcct Below tho charcoal band. and
shere that does not occur, Immediately in
contact with tho floor of the etalagmite, is
= thick stratum Of rcd clay mixed with
iragmonts of limestone from the roof1
scales OF stalagnitc, etc, tho whole amount.
ing to about four feet in depth, and called
40 " cave earth" Beneath the cave earth
occurs another floor of hard crystalline car
Donate OF lime, having a thickness in some
places OF over twelve feet, called Tho
" cfystalinc stalagmitc." Below the latter
Ieo a deep stratum composed of fragments
OF limestone, red grit, quartz, and sand. all
ilore or less ccmented together by carbonate
Il lime in the form of stalagmitic deposit.
Inc interesting feature of this matter.
Which alonc induced mo to visit and inspect
these caverns, is the fact that the relics OF
Ian are found i-nbcddcd in every stratum
,. this cavcrnous floor, oven to the last
sne mentioned. these relics in the bottom
-;tratum consist of u flint spear points
and tint daggers or kniy.1 Those imple.
ments found nearer the surface, as in the
crystalline stalngmitc, ere better shaped.
while IN the cave Garth ere found many
well-formed flint spcai5 and arrow POINTS.
flint knives, bono d,ggcru, Lcnc needles
with eyes, ETC. Nearer the surface the
weapons are moro numerous md elaborate.
and are associated with objects Of ornament.
Along with these Implements of man are
found a very large rdinI,e- of fragments of
bQnaG nf 1ix-it.~ a..1 -<l.s,& ..--r a---L-
the Inter Are tie mammoth, rhinoceros.
tichorinns, che gigantic Irish deer, cave
bear, cave lioa. c.a.
hi question ct once arises, how old are
these fossils! The problem is, to a large
extent, oEe Ct chemistry. How long would
the formation of such massive floors of
stalagmite, deposited from water which
still continues to drip from the ceiling of
the cavern, require? In the calculation it
must be remembered, first, that the drip
must be moderate. otherwise the deposit
would be washed away and secondly, that
in these caverns evaporation, which SO
much facilitates the deposition Of stalac-
titles under bridges, ETC., is wholly impossi-
BILE. The formation Of the stalagmitic de-
posit is wholly due to the difference in
temperature in the cave always 81 dogs.
Fahrenheit) and that prevalent without.
tNACa btAAAPtAhtaAO VI WIZ
below this point, water slightly charged
with carbonic acid, in percolating through
the everything limestone rocks, became
charged with carbonate of lime ; on enter
ing the warmer cavern q portion of the
carbonic acid gas escaped, int a part of
the calcarious cargo was deposited as stall
agmite. .
Fortunately, in Kcnt's cavern we nave ut
a point where the stalagmitic floors are
thickest, o kind Of time-scale, or gauge.
On a rather large knob or boss Of stalag-
mite, by the aid of n tallow candle. / easily
read this inscription " Robert Hedges, Of
Ireland, Feb. 20, 1858 the letters, about
an inch in length, having been cut or
scratched in with a knife. Although the
"hard " water still continues to drip on
this name, one hundred and ninety years
have served to dim, but not to efface the
inscription. The film over the letters GER
tainly does not exceed the one -sixteenth of
IN nch in thickness. Putting aside the
immense time requisite to the formation of
all the other strata, it appears that the
~stalagmite floors alone at this rate would
have required over GOO, 900 years for their
deposition.
Enormous as this time seems, the calcu.
lation is corroborated in a remarkable man
ner by independent evidence. Although
vel 4 tudb " IDuu u
enty feet above the small streams on whose
hillsides they are located, it is certain that
the bottom stratum in each case was
washed in. h proof of this statement
lies in the fact that the bottom stratum
contains large quantities of fiints, red grit,
md sand, which the walls of the caverns
| could not nav supplied, but of which the
supply is found at the heads of the streams.
As water will not now, and probably never
would, run up hill, it follows that the beds
of these streams were at or near the level
of the caverns where these materials were
washed in.
The next problem, therefore, is how long
has it taken the rains of Devonshire to ex.
cavate in solid limestone valleys several
hundred feet deepp How much limestone
can the annual rainfall dissolve, and how
much can it mechanically carry and push
into the ocean? Prof. Huxley has est.
mated that the Thames basin, which con,
sists principally of soft clays and chalk, ii
deepened at the rate of about the one
eighth of an inch per century. Applying
this time-scale to the present case, we fine
that more than six hundred Thousand year,
are necessary for this work. As the exca
walton was, however, through hard lime
stone instead Of chalk, and us the mouth o.
the cave at Brixhnm is nearly one hundred
feet above the present level of the creek
it Is evident that the time should b,
heightened. But man was in Devonshir'
before these valleys had been cut deepe
than the mouths of these caverns, and loni
before an inch of the stalagmitic floor hat
been deposited.
Diminish the time involved in these fact
and calculations in any easonabl name
as much as possible, and still the time dur
ing which man has lived in England i