70 Miscellaneous. 



period when the mammoth existed, a molar of that animal having 

 been dredged at a depth of five or six fathoms, and having been 

 apparently derived from the Forest-bed. 



The submerged forest rests upon a considerable thickness of clay, 

 evidently the soil in which the trees grew. The clay rests upon 

 Trias, a breccia of Devonian fragments intervening in places. This 

 breccia appears to be of glacial age. 



The gales of the winter of 1883-84 caused the exposure of con- 

 siderable areas of the clay between tide-marks ; and in one place, 

 resting upon the breccia, two aggregations of rolled trap pebbles 

 were found. These pebbles were shown to have probably served as 

 smelting-hearths. In their neighbourhood an ingot of copper, a 

 fragment of a second, some tin slag, a piece of glass, flint imple- 

 ments, and other articles were found, together with remains of piles 

 driven into the ground. These traces of human work apparently 

 belong to the bronze age. In Goodrington Bay pewter vessels, 

 apparently of Boman date, were found by the writer's son in a bed 

 10 feet below high-tide mark, or at a lower level than that of the 

 bronze-age relics. 



After referring to the occurrence of some estuarine shells (Scro- 

 bicularia, Hydrobia, Littorina, and Melampus) in the clay near 

 RedcHffe Towers, at the level where similar mollusca now exist (an oc- 

 currence which may, however, be due to a recent mixing of deposits), 

 the author pointed out that as the coast is known to have undergone 

 no change of level for nearly 2000 years, it is unlikely that it can 

 have been raised 40 feet, and again depressed to the same extent, 

 since the beginning of the bronze period, not more than about 

 fifteen centuries earlier. It is more probable that the clay bed was 

 deposited in a shallow mere or marsh, of land-water kept back by 

 the sea-beach, which was then some hundreds of feet further to sea- 

 ward, and that the forest, which consisted chiefly of willows, grew 

 on the marsh. The mammoth tooth may have been derived from 

 an older deposit, all other remains of mammalia obtained from the 

 Forest-bed belonging to animals still existing. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



Contributions to the Biology of Spiders, 

 By Dr. Fkiedrich Dahl. 



In the first part of the next (ninth) volume of the ' Vierteljahrs- 

 schrift fiir wisscnschaftliche Thilosophie ' an attempted represen- 

 tation of the psychical processes in spiders will be published by me. 

 As certain points in the work may also be interesting to zoologists, 

 I venture here to communicate very briefly the chief results of my 

 investigations, referring to the above-mentioned memoir for further 

 details and proofs. In that memoir I have first of all treated of the 

 sensorial perceptions and then passed to the higher mental life. 



