244 Geological Society : — # 



to Cervus Guettardi, were collected. The lower chamber was pene- 

 trated by Col. Wood, Dr. Falconer, and a friend last September, and 

 found to have been washed out by the sea to a depth inwards of 3 1 

 feet; and at its extremity they met with a compact mass of marine sand 

 and gravel, about 9 feet thick. The solid breccia forming the roof 

 of the lower, and the base of the upper cave, increases in thickness 

 from 6 feet at the outside to a greater depth inwards. Its materials 

 correspond with the bed of angular debris observed by Mr. Prestwich 

 on the raised beach of Mewslade Bay. 



" Bowen's Parlour," or " Devil's Hole," is also a cavernous fissure 

 in the limestone cliff, situated between Bosco's Den and Crow Hole. 

 It has been washed out by the sea ; portions only of its cave-deposits 

 remaining, especially a diaphragm of cemented breccia, which divides 

 the fissure into an upper and lower story ; the former about 20 feet 

 high at the mouth, the latter 14. Thin tabular aggregations of 

 sand adhere to the lower surface of the partition, showing that it 

 was deposited on a bed of sand. The same phenomena are repeated 

 in " Crow Hole " with modifications, the cave-deposits being still 

 in situ : here remains of Ursus, Meles, Rhinoceros, and some other 

 forms have been found by Col. Wood. 



" Raven's Cliff" presents a cavernous fissure broad and high ex- 

 ternally, contracted within. Here a thin crust of stalagmite 

 formed a floor upon sand 9 feet thick, which filled the fissure close 

 up to the roof, leaving only an empty angular chamber about a 

 foot high above the stalagmite. Upon the latter, remains of 

 Mustela foina, Canis vulpes, and some Fish-bones and Bird-bones 

 were found. In the sand large coprolites of Carnivores, some fine 

 remains of Felis spelaa, bones of Rhinoceros, and the vertebrae 

 of a Fish were discovered. Below the sand, as usual in the Gower 

 Caves, there was a sandy breccia cemented by stalagmite, about 

 a foot thick. Upon it a large block of limestone, smoothed and 

 polished, probably by the rubbing of passing cave-animals, was 

 discovered ; and patches of polished surface were seen on the walls of 

 the cave. Remains of Elephas, Rhinoceros, Bos, and Cervus were 

 met with above the breccia. Below the breccia was a bed of dark-grey 

 gritty sand, indurated by calcareous infiltration, and attaining a maxi- 

 mum thickness of about 8 feet. In this sand, and close upon the 

 rock-floor, teeth of Hippopotamus major, young and old, and remains 

 of Ursus, Cervus, and Arvicola, were met with. There was evidence, 

 on the cliff beyond the aperture, of the cave and its contents having 

 formerly been continued further seawards. 



The author pointed out that in all these caves the bottom appears 

 to have been first filled with sea-sand or shingle, with which were 

 occasionally intermingled the bones of pachyderms, ruminants, &c, 

 then living on the emerged land of Gower ; that when this deposit 

 was elevated above high-watermark, stalagmite and angular debris 

 of limestone rock formed a floor, on which subsequently cave-earth 

 or other common alluvial materials, with bones and antlers, often 

 in profusion, were accumulated through the fissure above, during a 

 long lapse of time after the rise had been accomplished. At last, 

 by a converse action, of comparatively modern date, the level of the 



