ON THE CHEMICAL NATURE OF CAST IRON. 11 



two oval tools found in the lowest level are very decidedly the most carefully 

 finished specimens which the cavern has yielded. In the present stage of the 

 investigation, the Committee think it neither desirable nor necessary to enter 

 into any arguments to prove the artificial character of at least many of the 

 flints which they have found. Indeed they speak for themselves ; and in 

 terms so unmistakeable that if they do not succeed in carrying con-s-iction to 

 the mind of the observer, any words that could be employed must certainly 

 fail also. 



It will be of interest, however, to call attention to certain other evidences 

 of human existence found in the cave-earth. As already remarked, it was 

 stated in the First Report that a whetstone had been found below the stalag- 

 mite. Very shortly after that Ilcport was drawn up a second stone was met 

 with, formed of a fragment of similar, though somewhat finer- grained, green- 

 ish grit. Its form is not quite the same as that of the first specimen. Mr. 

 Franks states that " it closely resembles some stones found in the Eruniquel 

 caves, in form and material." It was lying in the first level of cave-earth, 43 

 feet from the entrance, where the overlying stalagmite was 26 inches thick 

 and extended many yards in every direction. 



Several pieces of burnt bone were found in tlie cave-earth in the Gallery — 

 some near the extreme, and others near its inner end. One of them was 

 fomid in the first, and one in the thii-d, but most of them in the second foot- 

 level. In each ease the deposit was overlain by a thick cake of stalagmite. 

 Burnt bones have been found in the red earth in several parts of the Chamber 

 also. 



In conclusion, the Committee would remark that the careful and unremit- 

 ting labour bestowed on the cavern during the last year and a half has pro- 

 duced a large accumulation of facts, consistent with one another and with 

 those recorded by the earlier explorers. Of the discoveries made, the uniform 

 testimony is that beneath a thick floor of stalagmite, so difficult to work as to 

 require excellent tools and untiring perseverance, there arc everywhere found, 

 inosculating with bones of extinct mammals, and undoubtedly inhumed at the 

 same time, human industrial remains, of a character so humble and so little 

 varied as to betoken a very low type of civilization. 



Preliminary Report on the Chemical Nature of Cast Iron. 

 By A. MatthiesseNj F.R.S. 



ly tlie Transactions of the British Association for 1863 it was pointed out, in 

 a " Report on the Chemical Nature of Alloys," that alloys may be, when in a 

 solid state,— 



(1) Solidified solutions of the one metal in the other; 



(2) Chemical combinations ; 



(3) Solidified mechanical mixtures ; 



(4) Or sohdified solutions of mixtures of any of these. 



It is important to clearly imderstand what is here meant by the term 

 " sohdified solution," for in speaking of alloys they are generally considered 

 to be either mechanical mixtures or chemical combinations. In the "Report 



