454 



NATURE 



[Sept. 21, 1876 



28, 1875, and completed on July 10, 1876, upwards of eight 

 months having been spent on it. 



Matthews' s Passage. — Having finished their researches in the 

 Labyrinth, the Committee proceeded at once to explore the 

 small branch leading; from it to the Bear's Den, and termed, as 

 already stated, Matthews's Passage, thus leaving the two other 

 and adjacent small ramifications to be undertaken on some future 

 occasion. To this course they were tempted mainly by the 

 wealth of osseous remains which, from Mr. MacEnery's descrip- 

 tion, they are likely to find in the Bear's Den. 



Matthews's Passage consists of two reaches. The first extends 

 for about 14 feet towards the south-east, where the second turns 

 sharply towards east-north-east, and, after a somewhat tortuous 

 course of about 15 feet, enters the Bear's Den. Their height is 

 from 9 to 10 feet almost everywhere, measuring, as usual, from 

 the bottom of the excavation, which nowhere reaches the lime- 

 stone iloor ; and they vary from 3-5 to 7 feet in width. The 

 walls and roof, the latter especially, bear evident traces of the 

 erosive action of a flowing stream, succeeded by the corrosion 

 due, no doubt, to acidulated water, as the surfaces are much 

 fretted. 



There were but scanty traces of a stalagmitic floor in the 

 first reach, in which, however, the earlier explorers had here 

 and there broken ground ; but throughout the entire length of 

 the second reach a floor extended from wall to wall, varying 

 from 10 to 24 inches in thickness. 



The mechanical deposits in the first reach were the usual 

 thin layer of cave-earth above, and the breccia of unknown 

 depth below ; but in the second reach the space beneath the 

 stalagmitic floor was mainly occupied with large loose masses 

 of limestone, some of which required to be blasted more than 

 once in order to remove them. The spaces between them were 

 filled with cave-earth or breccia, with comparatively few speci- 

 mens of any kind. 



The upper surface of the cave-earth was almost perfectly hori- 

 zontal in the first reach ; but in the second it rose towards the 

 Bear's Den at a gradient of about i in 7. 



Matthews's Passage yielded a total of 49 " finds," including 

 specimens which may be thus distributed : — 



In the Cave-earth. — 26 teeth of hyaena, 2 of bear, I of an 

 immature mammoth, i of fox, and a considerable number of 

 bones, many of them being broken, and a few of them gnawed. 



In the Breccia. — 100 teeth of bear, and a large number of 

 bones. The richest " finds " were met with in a small recess at 

 the junction of the two reaches, where the teeth and bones were 

 huddled confusedly together, suggesting that a rush of water had 

 probably carried them to the spot they occupied. 



No trace of man was detected in any part of ihe Passage, the 

 exploration of which was completed on August 31, 1876, having 

 occupied about seven weeks. 



In looking over the work accomplished since the Eleventh 

 Report was presented in 1875, the following noteworthy facts 

 present themselves : — 



1. In their Eleventh Report, the Committee sketched the dis- 

 tribution, in the cavern, of the remains of the mammals which 

 characterise the cave-earth. Of this sketch, the following is a 

 brief summary : — The hycena had been met with wherever the 

 cave-earth was found ; the hare had not been detected anywhere 

 in the western division of the cavern — that most remote from the 

 external entrances ; the badger, wolf, and ox had not been 

 found beyond " The Charcoal Cave ; " and relics of horse, rhi- 

 noceros, deer, fox, elephant, and lion had not appeared beyond 

 "The Long Arcade." 



It is now necessary to say that remains of ox, horse, rhino- 

 ceros, fox, elephant, and lion have all been found beyond the 

 Long Arcade, in one or more of the three branches of the 

 cavern explored since the Bristol meeting. In all other par- 

 ticulars the distribution remains at present as sketched in 1875. 



2. No tooth, or, so far as is at present known, other trace of 

 Machairodus latidcus has been met with since the last Report 

 was drawn. In short, the only evidence of the presence of this 

 mammal which the Committee have detected during the con- 

 tinuous labour of almost twelve years, is the solitary incisor 

 found July 29, 1872, a fact well calculated to impress one with 

 the unsatisfactory nature of merely negative evidence. It cannot 

 be doubted that had this comparatively small specimen been 

 overlooked, those palaeontologists who were sceptical respecting 

 the occurrence of Machairodus in Kent's Hole, would have 

 believed their scepticism to be strongly confirmed by the labours 

 of the Committee, whilst the number of sceptics would have been 

 greatly increased. 





3. As already stated, the Committee spent upwards of ten 

 consecutive months, in 1875-76, in exploring the Labyrinth and 

 Matthews's Passage ; yet, during all this time, and in these two 

 important branches of the cavern, they found no trace whatever 

 of prehistoric man. Had they, on receiving their appointment 

 from the British Association in 1864, commenced their researches 

 in either of the branches just named — and such a course was by 

 no means without its advocates — instead of beginning at the 

 external mouth of the cavern, and proceeding thence steadily 

 through the successive chambers and galleries, there can be little 

 or no doubt that Kent's Hole would have been pronounced 

 utterly destitute of any evidence on the question of human 

 antiquity, and but poorly furnished with remains of extinct 

 mammalia. The work would probably have been closed with- 

 out going further, to the great loss of anthropology and paleon- 

 tology, as well as of popular education in these important 

 branches of science. 



Seventh Report on Earthquakes in Scotland, by Dr. James 

 Bryce, F.G.S. — The past year was a period of comparative 

 quiescence in Scotland. Dr. Bryce described the arrangements 

 made for recording future shocks in the Connie district. The 

 Committee recommended the erection of seismometers at Ardoch, 

 Dunblane, and Bridge of Allan, where very distinct disturbances 

 were felt in 1873. 



Second Report of the Committee on Underground Waters of the 

 Niiv Red and Permian Formations of England, by C. E. de Ranee, 

 F.G.S. — The Committee's inquiries have been continued last 

 year, particularly with refcreqce to Liverpool, Birkenhead, 

 Nottingham, and Birmingham. Information has also been pro- 

 mised from Staffordshire. The Committee hope to complete 

 their labours before next meeting of the Association. 



Statistics were given by Mr. de Ranee regarding the amount 

 of water obtained fronrwells at Liverpool, Coventry, Birmingham, 

 Leamington, Nottingham, Birkenhead, Warrington, and Stock- 

 port. It was mentioned that at Liverpool the level of the water 

 in the public wells is gradually being lowered. 



At Barrow-in-Furness a bore for coal 3,210 feet deep, struck, 

 at the depth of 250 feet, a spring which now yields 13,500 

 gallons daily, and rises 12 feet above the surface. In this case, 

 as had been predicted by Mr. Aveline, a member of the Com- 

 mittee, the Permian rocks were found directly overlymg the 

 Millstone Grit, and it was thus proved that the Coal Measures 

 lying to the north are not continuous beneath the Permian. 

 Another important circumstance discovered by this bore was the 

 existence of petroleum in the Millstone Grit. 



The New Red Sandstone, being porous and ferruginous, has 

 been found to filter the water and oxidise the organic matter 

 contained in it. Water from wells in the New Red, even when 

 not artificially filtered, ranks high among drinking-waters for 

 purity and wholesomeness, contaming little saline and hardly 

 any organic matter. 



Taking an average rainfall of 30 inches per annum, and grant- 

 ing that only 10 inches percolate mto the rock, the supply of 

 water stored up by the Permian and New Red formations was 

 estimated by the Committee to amount to 140,800,000 gallons 

 per square mile. This rate would give, for the 10,000 square 

 miles covered by the formations, 1,408,000,000,000 gallons. 

 Only a very small proportion of this amount is made available 

 for the supply of cities and towns. 



Report on Lower Bagshot Leaf and Fruit Beds, by Mr. W. S. 

 Mitchell. 



SECTION B.— Chemical Science. 



In Section B the amount of work done during the meeting was 

 very considsrable, and the quality of the work was fairly good. 

 On Thursday a considerable number of members attended to 

 listen to the president's address, which has been already reported. 

 The papers read on that day were not of any great interest. 



Mr. Pattison Muir gave an account of some preliminary inves- 

 tigations upon Essential Oil of Saqe. Mr. A. R. Newlands 

 read a paper calling attention to various relations which exist 

 among the atomic weights of the Elements. The greater part of 

 the matter contained in this paper has been, at various times, 

 already made public by Mr. Newlands. In a paper by Mr. J. J. 

 Coleman upon A New Condensing Machine for the Liquefaction 

 of Gases by combined Cold and Prcssuic, attention was drawn to 

 certain dynamical questions relating to the best method of obtain- 

 ing cold from compressed gas so as to utilise the cold produced 



