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the faeces of a Hytena, and the teeth and bones of extinct 

 Mammals, cemented underneath a stalagmitic deposit to the roof 

 of the cave ; from which Dr. Falconer drew the inference, that the 

 cave had been filled to the roof during the human period, so that a 

 thick layer of bone-splinters, teeth, land-shells, and human imple- 

 ments, had been agglutinated together, and that, subsequently, 

 and within the human period, such a change had taken place in the 

 physical configuration of the district, as to cause the cave to be 

 emptied of its contents, excepting the patches cemented to the 

 roof. 



This is only one of the many startling facts which have been 

 of late brought to light ; which, with accumulating force and 

 volume, seem to constrain the admission that man was at one 

 time contemporaneous, not only with animals now extinct, but 

 with a conformation of surface, and a distribution of land and 

 water, very different from that which now exists on the surface of 

 the globe. 



The occurrence of human implements associated with the 

 teeth and bones of extinct species of Elephant, Rhinoceros, Bear, 

 Hysena, Tiger, Stag, and Ox, in stratified gravel on the Chalk- 

 hills of the Valley of the Somme, near Abbeville, and at St. 

 Acheul, near Amiens, together with the late discovery in Brixham 

 Cave, in Devonshire, of flint weapons in company with the bones 

 of extinct animals, have brought the co-existence of them with 

 man prominently forward amongst Geologists, who seem to be 

 arriving at the conviction, that man and the extinct mammals 

 referred to, were at one time contemporaneous, and if so, and the 

 physical facts in connexion be correctly interpreted, then it would 

 appear to follow, that the existence of man upon the earth must 

 be ante-dated to a period immeasurably far beyond the 6,000 

 years to which the human epoch has been usually limited. 



These are indeed startling facts, and the wonderful conclu- 

 sions to which they seem to lead, may well make us hesitate before 

 we adopt them in their full extent. Nevertheless, howsoever our 

 interpretation may be at fault, the facts of Nature are incontro- 

 vertible. They are the acts of the Almighty Creator Himself, and 

 have been written by Him "for man's understanding," in charac- 

 ters as imperishable as the rocks on which they are inscribed ; 

 and we may feel perfectly satisfied that if the facts be true, and 

 they be truly interpreted, we must accept the conclusions, no matter 

 how much they may appear to militate against preconceived 

 opinions, or against the apparent meaning of written records. 



On Wednesday, the 15th of June, the Club met at Dursley. 

 The President, Secretary, and the Rev. J. H. Deane, proceeded 

 from the Berkeley-road Station through the Stinchcombe Marl- 

 stone quarries, where nothing worthy of record was found, to a 

 quarry, on the top of the hill above Dursley, where the strati- 

 graphical relations of the beds are well shown, In descending 



