Mr. Buddie on the Great Fault called the Horse. 229 



and other caves ; and if it should be urged that the most powerful 

 lion could not carry off the bodies of the great Pachyderms, Mr. 

 Austeia says, that an examination of a very large proportion of the 

 remains taken fi-om Kent's Hole has proved that the bones and teeth 

 of the Elephant belonged to young animals ; and he quotes Dr. Buck- 

 land's statement, that the ten elephants' teeth discovered in Kirkdale 

 Cave belonged to extremely young animals. (Rel. Dil. p. 18.) 



The conclusions, therefore, which Mr. Austen wishes to draw are, 

 1 st, that the carcases were dragged into the bone caves by powerful 

 feline animals ; and '2ndly, that hyfenas picked and gnawed the bones 

 after those animals had satisfied their hunger, and while they were 

 absent. He also objects to the belief that some of the German caves 

 are filled with the animal matter of countless generations of bears, 

 as the decomposition of one carcase, he saj's, would have driven the 

 linng bears from the cave ; but he believes the prevailing fossil re- 

 mains in each locality indicate only what animals were most abun- 

 dant in the district, and consequently most frequently fell a prey to 

 the powerful Felidae : thus in the low grounds about Yealmpton, 

 Kent's Hole or Kirkdale, herbivora may have been most abundant, 

 and bears in the region of the Hartz*. 



April 8th. — A paper was first read, " On the Great Fault, called 

 the Horse, in the Forest of Dean Coal Field ;" by John Buddie, Esq., 

 F.G.S. 



The term fault is used in this paper in the miner's signification, 

 or for any interruption in the regular deposition or range of a bed. 

 The Horse Fault, therefore, is not a displacement of one part of the^ 

 stratum by a dislocation, but a local thinning out of a bed of coal, 

 and a substitution of sandstone for it. 



The Horse has been traced in the Coleford High Delf seam, the 

 23rd in the descending series, or the 3rd from the bottom, and the 

 only one in which it is clearly developed, for about two miles; and 

 its known breadth varies from 170 to 340 yards. The only point 

 at which it has been tunneled through in a transverse direction, is 

 imder Barn Hill enclosure, between Brixslade and Howler's Slade 

 valleys, and its width is there about 200 yards. The upper surface 

 of the seam of coal, to a considerable distance on each side of the 

 Horse, undulates considerably, producing depressions called " Ioavs," 

 and great varieties in the thickness of the bed ; but the pavement 

 composed of the ordinary argillaceous deposits, which accompany 

 the seam throughout the basin, preserves nearly its ordinary regu- 

 larity. 



The roof of the seam consists of the strong sandstone which 

 usually reposes upon the Coleford High Delf, but a layer of black 

 slaty substance is sometimes interposed between it and tlie coal. 

 This sandstone extends to the surface, varying in thickness accord- 

 ing to tiic undulations of the ground, 1)ut at one point over tlie 

 Horse, the thickness is 91' yards. Tlie sandstone sometimes passes into 

 a conglomerate, containing fragments of coal, ironstone, and vege- 

 [* Sec Phil. Mag., First Scries, vol. Ixvi. p. 307. — Edit.] 



