182 Geological Society. 



considered by him to be a new species of the genus Melonites, 

 hitherto regarded as peculiar to America. The author proposed to 

 call this species Melonites Etheridgii ; and he described it as possess- 

 ing a more or less spheroidal test, about 7 inches in diameter, com- 

 posed of very thick plates, arranged in five ambulacral and five in- 

 terambulacral areas, all the plates being ornamented with minute 

 tubercles for the support of spines. The interambulacral areas were 

 probably about twice as broad as the ambulacral, and composed (at 

 the equator) of about nine ranges of plates, the marginal ones pen- 

 tagonal, the rest hexagonal, articulating with each other by faces 

 varying from a right angle to one of 30°. The ambulacral areas 

 were broad, each formed of two convex ribs separated by a meridional 

 depression running from mouth to anus, and each rib (half-area) com- 

 posed of 6 or 7 ranges of irregular plates, each perforated by a pair 

 of simple pores. The tubercles are minute, imperforate, without 

 boss, and of two orders, the larger surrounded by a smooth areola, 

 bounded by an elevated ring. The spines are small, tapering, 

 coarsely sulcate, with a prominent collar round the articular end. 

 A second specimen exists in the British Museum. The species 

 differs strikingly from the North- American Melonites multiporus in 

 the characters of the ambulacral areas, which have 12-14 ranges of 

 plates and are divided by a meridional furrow in the new species, 

 and only 8 ranges of plates, with a median ridge formed of plates 

 twice as large as the rest, in M. mnltijjorus. 



April 5th, 1876.— Prof. P. Martin Duncan, M.B.,F.R.S., President, 



in the Chair. 



" The Bone-Caves of Creswell Crags." By the Rev. J. Magens 

 Mello, M.A., F.G.S. 



In this paper the author gives an account of the continuation of 

 his researches upon the contents of the caves in Creswell Crags, Derby- 

 shire. The further exploration of the Pin-hole cave described in his 

 former paper *, furnished a few bones of Reindeer, Rhinoceros ticho- 

 rhinus, and other animals, but no more remains of the Arctic Fox, 

 which were particularly sought for. Operations in this cave were 

 stopped because the red sand, in which the bones were found towards 

 the entrance, became filled with limestone fragments, and almost barren 

 of organic remains. The author then commenced the examination 

 of a chambered cave called Robin Hood's cave, situated a little lower 

 down the ravine on the same side. The section of the contents of 

 this cave showed : — a smaU thickness of dark surface-soil, containing 

 fragments of Roman and Mediaeval pottery, a human incisor, and 

 bones of sheep and other recent animals ; over a considerable por- 

 tion a hard limestone breccia, varying in thickness fiom a few inches 

 to about 3 feet ; beneath this a deposit of light-coloured cave-earth, 

 varying in thickness inversely to the breccia, overlying a dark-red 



* See Quart. Joiirn. Geol. Soc. vol. xxxi. p. (>79. 



