492 
NATURE 
[April 20, 1871 

furnish the same class of remains as those found outside. 
The personal ornaments are the most worthy of note. 
Besides bronze harp-shaped brooches of the common late 
Roman type, there were two in gilt-bronze, of a sigmoid 
shape, and adorned with a singularly beautiful pattern in 
blue, yellow, red, and green enamel. They are undoubtedly 
of a style purely Celtic. A harp-shaped brooch, Roman 
in design, is adorned with a most delicate pattern in blue 
and red enamel. Among the other brooches, one small 
oblong enamel is of a form hitherto unknown in brooches 
of this date, while a second consists of a small disc of 
bronze, with a plate soldered to it bearing a flamboyant 
ornament of Celtic design. There were also bronze gilt 
armlets. The whole evidence furnished by the personal 
ornaments in a word points to their Romano-Celtic origin, 
and it is not improbable that the principal seat of the art 
of enamelling was Yorkshire, the few enamels of that 
particular kind which have been found occurring, with one 
or two exceptions, in that county. The date of the occu- 
pation is shown by the coins, which range from Trajan 
down to the barbarous imitations of the coins of Tetricus. 
The latter were in circulation in the fourth and fifth cen- 
turies, and probably continued to be used in that portion 
of the Romano-Celtic kingdom of Strathclyde down to 
its final conquest by Eadberht in 756 a.D. The whole 
group of remains is precisely of the same character as 
those found around the ruins of Roman villas in Britain, 
and has probably been introduced by Romano-Celtic in- 
habitants who fled from their luxurious homes to take 
refuge from the ravages of the Picts or Scots, or of the 
Northumbrian Angles, who were pressing on that portion 
of the frontier of Strathclyde during the 5th, 6th, and 7th 
centuries. To suppose that people using articles of luxury 
such as those found in the cave would have chosen such 
an inclement abode, except under the pressure of neces- 
sity, is unreasonable. 
At the entrance below the Romanc-Celtic strata a layer 
of angular debris fallen from the cliff above, six feet thick, 
rested on a thick deposit of gray clay. At their point of 
junction a curious bone harpoon, a bone bead, the remains 
of red deer, horse and Celtic short-horn, and of bear, were 
found, which testified to the occupation of the cave by 
man long before the Romano-Celts used it as a refuge. 
The two flint flakes and two lumps of red ruddle found 
were probably obtained from this lower horizon, which, as 
the talus died away at the entrance of the cave, became 
confused inside with the Romano-Celtic stratum imme- 
diately above. It is probably of Neolithic age. 
The grey clay underneath was homogeneous and very 
tenacious, and as the layer dipped away from the entrance, 
it must have been introduced by water flowing from the 
ravine into the cave. It was resolved to give up the attempt 
to fathom this bed of clay, after sinking a shaft twenty- 
five feet deep without any results. 
The committee are desirous of exploring others of the 
many caves in the neighbourhood, if they can obtain sup- 
port necessary to carry on a work which is of almost equal 
interest to the archzologist and to the historian. 


NEW SPECIES OF MADREPORE 
M® W. SAVILLE KENT read a paper at a recent 
meeting of the Zoological Society on various new 
species of Madrepores, or Stony Corals, met with by him- 
self while engaged upon arranging, naming, and cataloguing 
the fine series contained in the British Museum. Among the 
more interesting of these, commencing with the family of 
Turbinolidz, Mr. Kent drew attention to a fine species of 
Acanthocyathus from Japan, more closely allied to a 
Maltese Miocene form (A. Hastings@) than to any known 
existing one ; and also to a Flade//um allied to F. Antho- 
bhyllites, whose most remarkable feature rests in the 
phenomena connected with its reproduction by the process 
of gemmation, which invariably results in the destruc- 

tion of the parent ; the reproductive bud always originating 
within the margin of the parent calyx, which, in the 
course of its development, it splits to pieces. For this 
aberrant form Mr, Kent proposes the appropriate name of 
Flabellum matricidum. In the family of the Oculinide, 
which comprises the majority of the species introduced 
by Mr. Kent, are three new forms of AJd/ofora, and 
numerous ones of Stylaster, Distichopora and Amphihelia, 
the first-named genus in particular containing a magnifi- 
cent arborescent species, upwards of a foot in height, of a 
delicate rose colour, having a stem of such thickness and 
of such dense consistence that Mr, Kent is of the opinion 
that, if procurable in any quantity, it may eventually prove 
of high economic value, and even replace to some extent 
the well-known Corallium rubrum. The examination of 
these new varieties has enabled Mr. Kent to define more 
precisely the characters of A//ofora, and its true distinc- 
tions from Stylaster, Distichopora, and other allied genera. 
In all, Mr. Kent introduces some twenty species as new to 
science. 

SUBTERRANEAN ELECTRICAL DIS- 
TURBANCES 
A FEW minutes before and after the earthquakes of 
the 17th March last powerful positive electrical 
currents were rushing towards England through the two 
Anglo-American telegraph cables, which are broken near 
Trinity Bay, Newfoundland. Mr. C. F. Varley, C.E., 
who informed us of the fact, broaches the novel speculation 
that some earthquakes may be due to subterranean light- 
ning. He imagines thatas the hot centre of the earth is 
approached, a layer of hot dried rock may be found which 
is an insulator, while the red hot mass lower down isa 
conductor. If this conjecture be true—and there is plausi- 
bility in it—then the world itself is an enormous Leyden 
jar, which only requires charging to a very moderate 
degree to be equal to the production of terrific explosive 
discharges. 
The French Atlantic cable was disturbed at the same 
time, and so were many of the English land-lines, but the 
only observations as to the direction of the current were 
made by means of the Anglo-American telegraph cables. 
A number of Mr, Varley’s charts about earth-currents 
were published in the Government Blue Book of 1859- 
60, showing that the direction of these currents across 
England was in a very notable degree determined by the 
contour of the coast, and that the same auroral discharges 
would often produce currents at right angles to each other 
in direction, in different parts of Britain. 



NOTES 
A PROPOSAL has been made that certain Medical Schools on 
the north and south sides of the river should be amalgamated, in 
order that, by concentration of power, the teaching shall be made 
more efficient than it is at present, the teachers being able to 
devote themselves more unreservedly to their duties than they 
possibly can do under existing arrangements. The absolute 
necessity of some such arrangement as this is obvious. 
Mr. RUTHERFORD and M. Janssen, to whose labours cosmical 
physics owes so much, are both now in this country, the former, 
we regret to learn, in consequence of a peremptory order to cease 
work for atime. At the last meeting of the Royal Astronomical 
Society, Mr. Rutherford exhibited his exquisite photograph of 
the Pleiades, which represents the last important outcome of 
celestial photography. It appears that M. Janssen’s observatory 
for solar research, which had been erected in one of the pavilions 
of the Palace of St. Cloud, at the cost of the Emperor, was 
one of the first buildings to be entirely destroyed by the German 
fire. 
