TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 101 



from it to them ; using the same notation as above, the figures stand — Lower Devo- 

 nians in Petherwin 205, in Barnstaple 167 ; and intimate a relative age the reverse of 

 that just suggested, so that the only thing proved is t he insufficiency of the evidence 

 to decide the point; unless, indeed, it leaves us where it found us, accepting the 

 hypothesis that the two deposits arc strictly of the same age. 



The figures now produced, though they fairly represent our present knowledge, can 

 only be regarded as rough approximations. It is more than probable that whenever 

 the Census is taken again, it will be found necessary to make, perhaps extensive, 

 modifications in the Tables. 



On some Phenomena of Metamorphism in Coal in the United States. 

 By Professor H. D. Rogers, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., Glasgow. 



On the Geology of the Neighbourhood of Cambridge and the Fossils of the 

 Upper Greensand. By the Rev. Professor Sedgwick, F.R.S., F.G.S. 



On three undescribed Bone- Caves near Tenby, Pembrokeshire. 

 By the Rev. Gilbert N. Smith. 



The first of these caves was discovered about twenty years ago in blasting a cliff 

 overhanging the sea at Caldy Island, for the purpose of'dtransporting the mountain 

 limestone of which it is composed to the opposite coast of Devonshire. It had no 

 external opening at that time : the side walls were vertical, or nearly so, the strata 

 standing perpendicular to the plane of the horizon, as they frequently do hereabouts. 

 The cave was formed by a stratum of considerable thickness, having disappeared at 

 that place for some eight or ten yards, being probably of softer materials than that 

 both above and below, supposing the mass to be restored to its natural horizontal posi- 

 tion ; and this apparently by the action of the sea in earlier periods. Both the walls 

 and the roof have since been removed, so that now no cave exists there; but the_y?oor, 

 still containing fragments of bone, is covered with the debris of the quarrymen's 

 labours. 



"While the cave yet remained I obtained from it the usual osseous relics of the cave 

 mammals, — as bones of the EUphas primigenius, Rhinoceros, Sus Scrofa, Equus, 

 Cervus, Bos, Ursus, Hyana, Felts Tigris or Leo, Lupus, Cunis Vulpes, and some 

 smaller Carnivora. Besides these bones, there were the remains of marine fauna — 

 abundance of dorsal spines of some species of ray probably : these varied in length 

 from Ij inch to 2 inches; and other portions offish skeletons. 



The larger bones showed the same marks of gnawing described in the ' Reliquiae 

 Diluvianse ' of Buckland. Some of them exhibit down the edges impressions of the 

 teeth of a Rodent, probably a rat. The nearer these bones lay to the surface of the 

 red water-washed loam in which they were imbedded, the lighter they were, and more 

 nearly approaching in every respect the condition of exposed bones of recent existing 

 animals ; indeed many on the surface were sheep's bones ; but some on high ledges of 

 the cave were in the same ponderous stale as those below, which is usually called 

 fossil. At this time geology had not so far progressed as to suggest the possibility 

 of human remains, which therefore, if present, were not observed. 



The condition of the cave in general, and the situation of some of the bones in 

 particular, suggested nothing of the probability of this being a den of hyaenas, by whom 

 the bones had been conveyed into its recesses, but quite the contrary. Hyaenas' bones 

 lay about precisely in the same condition as ihe rest : the whole seemed to have been 

 forcibly driven into the cavern by the action of water; and some of the bones, par- 

 ticularly a large ulna, 10^ inches in diameter, were wedged firmly into fissures, just 

 as pieces of drift wreck are observed to be on rocky coasts. 



It is assumed in the ' Reliquiae Diluvianse ' that the presence of hyaena's dung in 

 these caves decides this point ; but it should be remembered that the hyaena is a hone- 

 rather than a flesh-eating animal, and that consequently the coprolitic balls are exceed- 

 ingly hard, being composed almost entirely of phosphate of lime ; and that they stand 

 the action of water almost, if not altogether, as well as the bones themselves". My 

 impression is that the whole were carried into the cave by water, and that the bones 



