174 OSSIFEROUS CAVES IN SICILY. chap. x. 



Durdhuni Down, JMinchin Hole, and other Gower caverns, — 

 also found at Clacton, in Essex, and in Northamptonshire. 



3. a. etruscus Falconer, a comparatively slight and slender 

 form, also with an incomplete bony septum,* occurs deep 

 in the Val d'Arno deposits, and in the "Forest bed," and 

 superimposed blue clays, with lignite, of the Norfolk coast, 

 but nowhere as yet found in the ossiferous caves in Britain. 



Dr. Falconer announced in 1859 his opinion that the 

 filling up of the Gower caves in South Wales took place after 

 the deposition of the marine boulder clay,-]- an opinion in 

 harmony with what we have since learnt from the section of 

 the gravels near Bedford, given above at p. 164, where a 

 fauna corresponding to that of the Welsh caves characterizes 

 the ancient alluvium, and is shown to be clearly post-glacial, 

 in the sense of being posterior in date to the submergence of 

 the midland counties beneath the waters of the glacial sea. 

 The Gower caves in general have their floors strewed over 

 with sand, containing marine shells, all of living species; and 

 there are raised beaches on the adjoining coast, and other 

 geological signs of great alteration in the relative level of 

 land and sea since that country was inhabited by the extinct 

 mammalia, some of which, as we have seen, were certainly 

 coeval with man. 



Ossiferous Caves in North of Sicily. 



Geologists have long been familiar with the fact that on 

 the northern coast of Sicily, between Termini on the east, and 

 Trapani on the Avest, there are many caves containing the 

 bones of extinct animals. Tiiese caves are situated in rocks 

 of hippurite limestone, a member of the cretaceous series, and 

 some of them may be seen on both sides of the Bay of 



» See Falconer, Quarterly Geological f Geological Quarterly Journal, vol. 



Journal, vol. xv. p. 602. xvi. p. 491, 1S60, 



