Nov. 6, 1 8 73 J 



NA TURE 



15 



interest from the evidence there of the relation of these 

 animals and man to the great ice-sheet. This hyajna- 

 bed dips into the cave, and has been worked only a short 

 distance from its mouth ; but at the mouth itself, vertically 

 under the farthest projection of the overhanging cliff, lies 

 a bed of stiff glacial clay containing ice-scratched boul- 

 ders. This bed dips outwards at an angle of about 40°, 

 and evidently lies on the edges of the beds containing 

 man and the older mammals. It has been suggested that 

 it may have fallen from the clift" above, and therefore may 

 not necessarily have come into its position in glacial 

 times, but, on a careful consideration, this is quite im- 

 possible. Upon it lies a great thickness of talus or scree, 

 which is made up of fragments of limestone split off from 

 the cliff above by the frosts of successive winters. If all 

 this were now removed it would be barely possible for the 

 glacial drift to fall from the cliff above to its present 

 position, but if all the talus were restored to the cliff, of 

 which it forms the waste, such a fall would be impossible. 

 It is quite clear, from the waste of the cliffs which has 

 taken place since the glacial drift came where it now lies, 

 that the cliff" then projected many feet farther out and 

 would prevent such a fall. 



A strong argument lies also in the fact that the loose 

 talus all lies above the drift and is quite free from mud, 

 whereas all the deposits below it are heavily charged with 

 it, and the mud is just such a fine impalpable stiff mud as 

 would result from the grinding of glaciers and the flow of 

 glacier water. It seems probable that the drift is really 

 the remnant of a moraine lateral or /n'/i'^^i', left here by 

 a glacier or an ice-sheet, and that the remains of the older 

 mammals and of man disinterred from beneath it are of 

 an age at any rate previous to the great ice-sheet of the 

 Irish -Sea basin. But there is another line of argument 

 which tends to the same conclusion. Three years ago 

 it was believed by most geologists that the fauna here 

 disinterred had never existed in this particular area— and 

 why ? because their remains had never been found in any 

 of the river deposits of the district. It was supposed 

 that the great extension of the ice prevented their mi- 

 gration hither. It is clear, now that we have found these 

 remains in caves, that they must have peopled the 

 northern district at one time as thickly as they did the 

 south of England, where their bones are so common in 

 river gravel. But their remains in the northern district 

 occur now only in caverns, and have been removed from 

 the open country. When we compare this removal of the 

 mammoth-fauna over certain districts with the presence 

 of evidence of land glaciation on a great scale, we begin 

 to see that they bear a definite relation to one another, and 

 that the ice-sheet was the great " besom of destruction" 

 which swept away all remains of the older inhabitants 

 from those portions of the country adjacent to the great 

 ice centres.* 



Again, there is another matter relating to this question 

 which has hardly received the attention which it deserves. 

 This is the complete absence of paleolithic implements and 

 the fauna which is usually associated with them in the river 

 gravels of the south,over co-extensive areas of the north of 

 England, indicating the removal of pateohthic :nan from 

 those areas by the ice-shejt. If I am not much mistaken, 

 this discovery at Settle may have an important bearing in 

 several ways. It will carry back the proofs of the an- 

 tiquity of man to a time previous to the ice sheet, that is 

 to interglacial if not to preglacial times. It will corrobo- 

 rate the opinions expressed by Mr. Godwin Austen, Mr. 

 James Geikie, and others, that the older valley gravels of 

 the south of England are not of an age subsequent to 

 the Till of the North. And it will giv^- some support to 

 the views of Messrs. Searles Wood and Harmer, that the 

 Till of the north- west of England, though older than the 

 great submergence, is probably of younger date than the 

 greater part of the drifts of the east coast. 



' Geological Magmitie, vol. x. p. 140. 



The Cave Committee will continue their work with 

 redoubled vigour. It is much to be hoped that the 

 scientific public will come to their assistance, and not let 

 the expense of the undertaking fall, as now, almost 

 entirely on the district of Craven.t 



R. H. TiDDEMAN 



ATLANTIC FAUNA 



T AST May the s.s. Hibeniia belonging to the Telegraph 

 ■'— ' Construction and Maintenance Company, was des- 

 patched to repair the French Atlantic Cable, in which a 

 fault was indicated some 200 miles from Brest. A brief 

 account of some of the animal forms obtained by me in 

 that expedition may not be without interest to some of 

 the readers of Nature. 



To Mr. R. London, superintending the expedition, I am 

 greatly indebted for the many facilities that he afforded 

 me, of obtaining specimens of the deep-sea fauna. The 

 first cast was made about 100 miles nearly due west of 

 Brest, at a depth of 83 fathoms. Here we found numerous 

 valves oi Pixtcn, a fine Opliiocoma, with rays nine inches 

 in length, which when handled broke itself into numerous 

 fragments, Ecliiniis lividus, Spaiaiii^us purpuicus, &c. 



At the surface we obtained by means of a towing-net a 

 great abundance of a minute Entomostracous crustacean 

 of a greenish-blue colour, with deep sapphire eyes, a 

 Cydippc, two species of Idotc-a and Polybius Hciislowii. 



On the Atlantic cable, which was raised to the surface 

 at a point 112 miles west of Brest, were found numerous 

 shells of a small boring mollusc, one of the PholadidLC, 

 apparently Xylopliaga. The outer covering of the cable, 

 consisting of taned manilla hemp, was perforated in 

 many places by the round holes which they had formed 

 and in which their shells were found. In places they had 

 penetrated the outer covering, and had passed between 

 the iron wires to the gutta perclia core, in which they had 

 made numerous shallow indentations, but in no case had 

 they penetrated this to any depth. This cable, it will be 

 remembered, was laid in i86g. 



We now steamed about 87 miles westward to the 

 edge of the Little Sole Banks, where the water deepens 

 from 90 to 480 fathoms within a distance of a few miles. 

 Here the cable was again hooked and brought to the sur- 

 face from a depth of about 300 fathoms. Adhering to its 

 surface was a species of Pycnoi^oniiin in great abundance. 

 The specimens lived for some time after being brought to 

 the surface, and moved about sluggishly. 



A few bright red anomourous crustaceans were also 

 obtained. These were very active, and lived for some 

 days in a bucket of water. 



They had, while in confinement, a peculiar habit of 

 drawing their claws over their head, antennee, and eyes, 

 which suggested the idea that they were confused and 

 dazzled by the extraordinary amount of light to which they 

 were exposed. 



A species of Tubiilaria of great beauty grew abundantly 

 in clusters on the cable, and throve well in confinement. 

 The cable was thickly overgrown with Scrtiilanas of 

 various species, moored to which by their hinder legs a 

 species of Caprdla, diabolic in appearance, but sluggish 

 and inactive in nature, abounded. 



A few miles farther westward the cable was raised from 

 a depth of 4S0 fathoms. Scitiilarias, Tnbularias, Caprdla, 

 Sic, were still abundant ; but the Pycnogoimm was con- 

 spicuous from its absence. 



In the recent expedition in which the Great Eastern 

 and Hibeniia have been employed in endeavouring to 

 repair the Atlantic Cable of 1865, the natural history re- 

 sults have been much more meagre. Perhaps the most 

 interesting objects obtained are some fragments of rock, 



t IVIessrs. Birkbeclc and Co., Craven Bank, Seltle, have kindly consented 

 to receive subscriptions, 



