measures seven by eight inches. The lower is nearly round and is four
inches in diameter, and shows distinct traces of having been fretted by
a rope having passed over it. It must have been used for the drawing up
of food or other objects likely to excite the cupidity of robbers and
_routiers_. The number of notches for beams of a floor in the
sides of the cave is remarkable, but no floor can have been erected
there, otherwise it would not have rotted away, whilst the two cross-
beams at the entrance remain sound. The chimney supposed by Martel to
communicate with the surface does not do so. Spade work at the foot of
the rock revealed the manner in which the cavern had been reached. A
tradition existed in the Vers valley that at one time there had been a
tower at the foot of the rock, and old men remembered the removal of
some of its ruins for the construction of a mill. By digging, the
foundations of the tower were disclosed. It had been square and
measured 44 feet on each side. It had stood about 60 feet high, and had
been topped with a lean-to tiled roof resting against the uppermost
beam in the cave and thereby masking it. [Footnote: "Le Roc d'Aucour,"
in _Bulletin de la Soc. des Antiquaires de Quercy_, Cahors, 1901,
t. xxvi.]

A somewhat similar cave is that of Boundoulaou in the Causse de Larzac
(Lozere). Although this has an opening in the face of the precipice,
which is partly walled up, it can be entered from another and more
accessible cave. At a considerably lower level flows a stream that at
one time issued from it, but has worked its way downwards, and now
gushes forth many feet below. However, apparently in times of heavy
rain, the overflow did burst forth from the upper cavern, for in it
were found the skeletons of a whole family that had perished on one
such occasion.