The Rev. Mr. McEnery’s Researches in the Bone Cave of Kent’s Hole, Torquay, and their Relation to the Archæology and Palæontology of Britain

Abstract

Although the scene of Mr. M’Enery’s researches is very remote from Yorkshire, the value of his discoveries is not confined to the locality in which they were made. No higher testimony to their importance can be needed than that of Professor Owen, who says, “The richest cave depository of bears hitherto found in England, is that called Kent’s Hole, near Torquay. It is to the Rev. Mr. M’Enery that the discovery of the various and interesting fossils of this cave is principally due.” Mr. M’Enery was the chaplain of the old Roman Catholic family of Carey, of Tor Abbey, and he has left an interesting account of the circumstances which led him to engage in those investigations, which have connected his name with the Archaeology and Palaeontology of Britain. It will be better understood if I briefly advert to the nature of the district in which they were carried on. The geological relations of Devonshire generally, and especially of that part of its southern coast in which Kent’s Cavern exists, were long a problem to geologists, till the sequence of organic remains cleared up the obscurity which mineralogy could not alone remove, and decided its place to be in the old red sandstone, intermediate between the Silurian and Carboniferous systems. The whole of the coast from Berryhead to Watcombe appears to have undergone great disturbances in former times, from the agency of both fire and water. Raised beaches occur,—in one instance on a rock, which now stands out some ...