17 JANUARY 1947, Page 15

THE LASCAUX CAVES

SIR,—Your contributor, Mr. M. H. Middleton, writing on " Art " in the January loth issue of The Spectator, states that the first eye-witness description of the Lascaux Caves to appear in this country was, in his view, that of Mr. Alan Houghton Brodrick in the (then) current issue of The Observer. Mr. Brodrick had, however, been forestalled—by Mr. Raymond Mortimer, Literary Editor of the New Statesman and Nation, who wrote an eye-witness description of the same remarkable paintings under the provocative title of A Painted Cave, in the issue of that journal for November zard. I feel Mr. Mortimer should be credited with that particular "scoop."—Yours faithfully, JOHN F. ELKIN. 14 Park Hill, Ealing, W. 5.