478 



NATURE 



\Augiist 29, 1878 



sandstone age seems to have been the opinion of the late Gen. 

 Portlock, who in his geological report on Londonderry, with 

 parts of Tyrone, &c., has described these rocks and their rela- 

 tions to each other at considerable length. He does not seem 

 to have considered the granite to be intrusive, but merely a 

 metamorphosed condition of what we now call the lower car- 

 boniferous sandstone, which was then classed with those of the 

 old red formation. 



On the Cervus Megaceros, by W. Williams. 



On the Occurrence of Certain Fish Remains in the Coal 

 Measures, and the Evidence of the Fresh-water Origin of the Coal 

 Measures, by James W. Davis, F.G.S. — These occur in a 

 bed of [cannel Jcoal, and more particularly in the impure cannel 

 above and below it, in the district of Morley and Adwalton, 

 near Leeds. They consist of both Elasmobranchs and Ganoids, 

 but by far the most common are Ccelacanthus lepturus. The 

 fresh-water nature of the cannel coal and the internal anatomy 

 of the Ccelacanthus, together with occurrence of Labyrintho- 

 donts, lead to the conclusion that the strata were of sub- 

 aqueous, and probably fresh-water origin. 



On the Age of the Crystalline Rocks of Donegal, by Prof. W. 

 King, D.Sc. — The author had succeeded in obtaining some true 

 fossils in portions of the Innishowen limestone that have scarcely 

 undergone any change. He had not had time to examine them as 

 closely as he would have wished, but they appeared to be identical 

 with Caradoc Bryozoon from the Desertcreat schists of Tyrone, 

 which Portlock has called Ptilodictya dicotoma. This was the first 

 example, as far as he could ascertain, of an undoubted fossil 

 having been detected in these limestone?. The fact may be 

 taken as evidence that these deposits and their associated argil- 

 laceous and siliceous masses are of the lower Silurian age, and it 

 seemed highly probable that the more intensely metamorphosed 

 rocks in the north-west division of Donegal belonged to the 

 same geological period. 



On the Cervus Megaceros, by W. Williams. — The author con- 

 sidered that in some excavations he had made at Ballyhetagh 

 Bog, near Dublin, he had met with evidence which led 

 him to differ from former views as to the time of these 

 animals' existence. He asserted that the clay on which the 

 remains rested is the lomer boulder clay. He considered the 

 animal lived during the middle glacial period, and was killed 

 off by the cold of the uppper boulder clay period. 



Prof. Leith Adams, F.R.S., questioned the accuracy of Mr. 

 Williams' views. There was no evidence for such a division of 

 glacial beds in the locality in question, as Mr. Williams had 

 mentioned, nor was there any proof that the animals had been 

 destroyed by the intervention of a cold period. In England 

 there is authentic evidence of the co-existence of this animal 

 with man. 



After the discussion on the Cervus megaceros, the president 

 submitted the following lines : — 



" Small comfort to the stag that's mired, 

 To think that in long distant ages 

 He'll be dug out to be admired, 

 And have his life discussed by sages." 



which Mr. Pengelly capped as follows : — 



" Yet had he known their fearful puzzle, 



How far from truth each sage would be, 

 Methinks he'd rear his cervine muzzle, 

 And scent the future Section C." 



SECTION D.— BiOLOGT. 



Department of Anthropology. 



Miss A. W. Buckland read a paper On the Prehistoric 

 Monuments of Cornwall compared with those in Ireland. — In 

 the course of her paper Miss Buckland said that the prehistoric 

 monuments of Cornwall, believed by archreologists to be the 

 work of the same race as those of Ireland, presented, in the 

 midst of strong resemblance, certain points of difference which 

 deserved the attention not only of archceologists but of ethnolo- 

 gists. In both countries they consisted of tumuli, including 

 chambered ban-ows and giants' graves, monoliths or menhirs, 

 circles, cromlechs or dolmens, and holed stones, all probably 

 sepulchral and hut circles, cliff ca-^ ties, curious caves and crosses, 

 whilst in Ireland they found in addition earthworks called raths, 

 and round towers. Long barrov.-s, which were looked upon as 

 the most ancient of burial places belonging to the stone age, 

 were wanting in both countries, hence we may infer that the 

 people who then existed in England and Scotland never in- 



habited Cornwall and Ireland, where the earliest barrows seem 

 to belong to the bronze age, tlie mode of interment in Cornwall 

 being chiefly by cremation ; but these tumuli may not represent 

 the earliest tombs in these countries. 



Mr. W. J. Knowles read a paper On Flint Factories at Fort- 

 stezuart and Elsewhere in the North of Ireland. — The paper 

 contained a further account of a find of flint implements found 

 in sandhills at Portstewart, county Londonderry, near the mouth 

 of the River Bann, which consisted of a large quantity of 

 scrapers, some arrow-heads, bone implements, hammerstones, 

 and flakes, with shells, broken bones, and pottery. These were 

 found in hollows amongst the sand, but were supposed to have 

 dropped from black layers on the sides of the pits as the sand 

 was removed by the wind. The black layer represents the 

 ancient surface, and similar objects have been dug out of it. 

 The only new find since the subject was last brought before the 

 British Association was some porous lava and flakes of obsidian. 

 These substances are not found native, as far as the author could 

 learn, and he believed they must have floated a distance, pro- 

 bably from the West Indies. He also described other places 

 which he had explored in the neighbourhood of Castlerock, 

 county Londonderry, and Ballintoy, county Antrim, vhere 

 similar remains were found, and the same kind of black layers 

 are to be seen. The black layers, when not destroyed or un- 

 covered by denudation, are covered up with sand from ten to 

 twenty feet in thickness, which is protected on the top, but is 

 gradually wearing away where exposed at the sides. The animal 

 remains were submitted to Prof. A. Leith Adams, of the Royal 

 College of Science, and he decided that they contained man, 

 hoi-se, ox, hog, dog or wolf, fox, and deer. He also described 

 objects from Lame, some of which were found nine feet 

 from the surface, and he exhibited a photograph of a mammoth's 

 tooth, found in a small delta-like field near Larne, which is now 

 in the possession of the Rev. Dr. Grainger, M.R.I. A., of 

 Broughshane, county Antrim, and flakes and rude implements 

 from the same field. He also showed and described a series of 

 rude implements thick at the one end, for holdin;; in tlae hand, 

 and pointed at the other, of the paleolithic form. Although 

 there were no animal remains found with them they were taken 

 from the diatomaceous deposit below the peat, ^^here remains of 

 the Irish elk are usually found, and the author drew attention to 

 a statement of Dr. John Evans in his "Stone Implements of 

 Great Britain," where, on comparing the implements found in 

 the caves and those in the old river drifts, he says — "the large- 

 pointed implements are mostly found in the latter;" and gives 

 as his reason for their being found mainly there that they were 

 probably used "for out-of-door purposes." The author states 

 that it was strange that his large implements of similar form 

 were found mainly in tlie bed of a river, and suggested that the 

 rivers and that form of implement had probably some connec- 

 tion, and that they were not used for "out-of-door purposes" 

 only. Reference was next made to the age of the implements 

 found in Ireland, about which he said authors \\ex& not agreed, 

 and the author again quoted from Evans' " Stone Implements," 

 and showed that the descriptions of many of the palaeolithic im- 

 plements in that work would apply to the Irish ones, and con- 

 cluded that we must either carry man farther back than the 

 so-called neolithic age, or give up some of our theories regarding 

 the distinguishing characteristics of the palaeolithic and neolithic 

 implements. 



Mr. V. Ball, M.A., exhibited a number of objects of ethno- 

 logical interest, collected in the districts of India, and also in the 

 Nicobar and Andaman Islands. These included stone imple- 

 ments, battle-axes, an instrument like a boomerang used in kill- 

 ing small animals, but which was not capable of the return 

 motion of the Australian boomerang, arrows, musical instruments, 

 &c. There was a curious wooden figure, not an idol, but an 

 efiigy of some departed person, with a sort of girdle round the 

 ^^-aist, which hung down like a tail behind ; and the author 

 thought it explained the ancient tradition of men with tails in 

 those islands. Another singular item consisted of two orna- 

 mental skulls, in reference to which Mr. Ball mentioned that on 

 the death of an Andamanese his body was placed on a tree, and 

 as soon as his bones became bleached his skull was taken and 

 ornamented, and first carried about by his widow, and after- 

 wards by other members of his family. The collection included 

 some photographs, one of which represented buildings on piles 

 in water. 



Mr. T. J. Hutchinson, lately her Majesty's Consul at Callao, 

 read a paper entitled Habits and Customs amongst some Tribes o-f 



