Page:The Geologist, volume 5.djvu/116

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THE GEOLOGIST.

at the Scilly Tsles such flints are found. At Croycle Bay, about half-way between Middle-Borough and Baggy Point, at the mouth of a small transverse valley, Mr. Whitley found them in considerable number, collecting about 200 specimens, of which about 10 per cent, of the splintered flints at this place have more or less of an arrow-head form; but they pass by gradations from what appear to be perfect arrow-heads of human manufacture to such rough splinters as are evidently the result of natural causes. Hence the author suggested that great caution should be used in judging what flints have been naturally, and what have been artificially shaped.

2. "On some further Discoveries of Flint Implements in the Gravel near Bedford." By James Wyatt, Esq., F.G.S. Since Mr. Prestwich described the occurrence of flint implements near Bedford ('Geological Society's Journal,' No. 67, p. 366), Mr. Wyatt and others have added seven or eight to the list, from the gravel-pits at Cardington, Harrowden, Biddenham, and Kempston. Mr. J. G. Jeffreys, F.G.S., having examined Mr. Wyatt's further collections of shells from the gravel-pits at Biddenham and Harrowden, has determined seventeen other species besides those noticed by Mr. Prestwich, and among these is Hydrobia marginata (from the Biddenham pit), which has not been found alive in this country. At Kempston, Mr. Wyatt has examined the sand beneath the gravel (which is destitute of shells), and at 3 feet in the sand (19 feet from the surface) he found Helix, Succinea, Bithnia, Pupa, Planorbis, etc., with flint flakes.

3. "On a Hyæna-den at Wookey-Hole, near Wells, Somerset." By W. Boyd Dawkins, Esq., F.G.S. In a ravine at the village of Wookey-Hole, on the southern flanks of the Mendips, and two miles N.W. of Wells, the river Axe flows out of the Wookey-Hole Cave by a canal cut in the rock. In cutting this passage, ten years ago, a cave, filled with ossiferous loam, was exposed, and about 12 feet of its entrance cut away. In 1859 the author and Mr. Williamson began to explore it by digging away the red earth with which the cave was filled, and continued their operations in 1860 and 1861. They penetrated 34 feet into the cave, and here it bifurcates into two branches, one vertical (which was examined as far as practical), and one to the right (left for further research). A lateral branch on the left, not far from the entrance, was also examined. The cave is hollowed out of the Dolomitic Conglomerate, from which have been derived the angular and water-worn stones scattered in the ossiferous cave- earth. Its greatest height is 9 feet, and the width 36 feet; it is contracted in the middle, and narrow towards the bifurcation. Remains of Hyæna spelæa (abundant), Canis Vulpes, C. Lupus, Ursus spelæus, Equus (abundant), Rhinoceros tichorhinus, Rh. leptorhinus (?), Bos primigenius, Megaceros Hibernicus, C. Bucklandi, C. Guettardi, C. Tarandus (?), C. Dama (?), and Elephas primigenius were met with; remains of Felis spelæa were found when the cave was first discovered. The following evidences of man were found by Messrs. Dawkins and Williamson in the red earth of the cave—chipped flints, flint-splinters, a spear-head of flint, chipped and shaped pieces of chert, and two bone arrow-heads; and the author argues that the conditions of the cave and its infilling prove that man was contemporaneous here with the extinct animals in the pre-glacial period (of Phillips), and that the cave was filled with its present contents slowly by the ordinary operations of nature, not by any violent cataclysm.

February 5, 1862.—The following communications were read:—

1. "On some Volcanic Phenomena lately observed at Torre del Greco and Resina." By Signor Luigi Palmieri, Director of the Royal Observa-