184 Geological Society. 



breccia indicate that the cave was inhabited by man, and less fre- 

 quently visited by Hyaenas than before. The presence of vertebrae of 

 the Hare in the breccia would imply that the hunters who occupied 

 the cave had not the dog as a domestic animal. After a discussion 

 of the relations of the animals forming the fauna of the cave, the 

 author proceeded to describe the traces of man found in it, which 

 consist of fragments of charcoal, and implements made of antler 

 and mammoth-tooth, quartzite, ironstone, greenstone, and flint. 

 The distribution of those implements in the cave represents three 

 distinct stages. In the cave-earth the existence of man is indicated 

 by the quartzite implements, which are far ruder than those gene- 

 rally formed of the more easily fashioned flint. Out of 94 worked 

 quartzite pebbles only 3 occurred in the breccia, while of 267 worked 

 flints only 8 were met with in the cave-earth. The ruder imple- 

 ments were thus evidently the older, corresponding in general form 

 with those assigned by De Mortillet to " the age of Moustier and 

 St. Acheul," represented in England by the ruder implements of the 

 lower breccia in Kent's Hole. The newer or flint series includes 

 some highly finislied implements, siich as are referred by De 

 Mortillet to " the age of Bolutre," and are found in England in the 

 cave-earth of Kent's Hole and AVookey Hole. The discovery of 

 these implements considerably extends the range of the Pala?olithic 

 hunters to tlie north and west, and at the same time establishes a 

 direct relation in point of time between the ruder types of imple- 

 ments below and the more highly finished ones above. 



May 10, 1876.— Prof. P. Martin Duncan, M.B., F.K.S., President, 

 in the Chair. 



'• On some Fossil Reef-building Chorals from the Tertiary De- 

 posits of Tasmania." By Prof. P. Martin Duncan, M.B., F.R.S., 

 President. 



The species described by the author were ffeliastrcea tasmaniensis, 

 sp. n., Thawnastrcvu sera, sp. n., and a second species of Thamnas- 

 trcea. Both these genera are composed of reef-building Corals ; and 

 the species here described undoubtedly belonged to that category. 

 They required the natural conditions peculiar to coral reefs. The 

 author noticed the facts as to the distribution of land and water in 

 the Australian region in Lower Cainozoic times, which are revealed 

 by the deposits belonging to that age, and indicated that, although 

 the insular distribution of the land may have been favourable to 

 the growth of coral reefs, the existence of a suitable sea-tempera- 

 ture in the latitude of Tasmania is insufficiently explained. A 

 single relic of the old reef-Luilding Corals survives on the shores of 

 Tasmania in the Echinopora rosularia, Lam. ; but all the other forms 

 have died off. The Coral-isotherm would have to be 15° lat. south 

 of its present position to enable reefs to flourish south of Cape Howe ; 

 and this could be caused only by a change in the arrangement of 

 land and sea, and in the position of the polar axis. The author 



