A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



5. Deposits in old meres occur to the north and west of Bingham at a 

 height of 50 feet above Trent level. They are mapped as alluvium, but 

 consist of black earth, 34 ft. thick, and contain twenty-four species 

 of land and freshwater mollusca. 1 Similar meres filled up with black 

 soil are known at Gotham Moor and at Scarthingmoor by Tuxford, with 

 seventeen recorded species. 1 Black soil is also recorded overlying a cal- 

 careous tufa at Lambley or containing tree stumps in the Leen valley. 3 



6. Deposits in fissure caves. Caves or fissures are known to occur in 

 the Magnesian Limestone at two localities, both of which are by the 

 sides of rivers forming the boundary of the county on the west side. 

 Creswell Crags are on the Poulter, a tributary of the Idle, and Pleasley is 

 on the Meden, but of the numerous caves at Creswell only one is in 

 Notts, and the single fossiliferous cave at Pleasley is over the border in 

 Derbyshire. The single Notts cave is called the Church Hole. 3 It is a 

 fissure opened in the clifF and runs in a north and south direction, com- 

 mencing 1 4 feet above the river and extending upwards for 40 feet. The 

 deposits within it are : a bed of red sand overlain by several varieties of 

 cave-earth, the whole being covered with stalagmitic breccia. Of the 

 animal remains here buried, the jaw of a polecat is peculiar to the red 

 sand, and a limb bone of the cave-lion to the cave earth. The rest are 

 common to both ; they include the 



Spotted hyaena 



Fox 



Wolf 



Bear 



Reindeer 

 Irish elk 

 Bison 

 Horse 



Woolly rhinoceros 



Mammoth 



Hare 



Of human implements, rude ones made of quartz, etc., occur alone 

 in the red sand, but they are accompanied in the cave earth by imple- 

 ments of flint, also needle, awl, and a notched instrument, and a rounded 

 spearhead all made of bone, and a straight rod cut from a reindeer's 

 antler. 



To complete the picture of the associates of the first inhabitants of 

 Nottinghamshire the list of additional mammals found in the caves just 

 over the border may be given : 



Sabre-toothed lion 



Lion 



Wild cat 



Leopard 

 Wild boar 

 Hippopotamus 



Field mouse 



To this list must be added the lynx found in 1866 at Pleasley Yew 

 Tree Cave by Dr. Ransom. 4 The men whose works are associated with 

 these are considered to be of Palaeolithic age, though one of them was 

 an artist and carved on the surface of a bone the picture of a domesti- 

 cated horse. 



1 C. T. Musson, Jeurn. Conchology, vol. iv. 



* Shipman, Midi. Nat. vol. vi. 



3 J. M. Mello and W. B. Dawkins, >uart. Jeurn. Geol. Sac. vol. xxxiii. 



* Rep. Brit.Atsoc. 1866. 



