710 EEPORT— 1887. 



pointed out that the British School of Archseanites seem for the most part to rely 

 nearly altogether on lithological characters. 



The Irish rocks are specially mentioned, and it is 8ho^vn that nowhere in Ireland 

 are there records of a great lapse of time heticeen the deposition of the supposed Arch- 

 (san and that of the later rocks; hut, on the contrary, one group merges into the 

 other, or is lithologically more or less similar, or is petrologically one and the same 

 group, as rocks that in one place are classed as Archaeaus have in another place their 

 equivalents classed as Ordovicians. Also the boundaries of the supposed Archteans 

 are so obscure that they have continually been changed lite the rolling fences of 

 the farms adjoining a common, being pushed backward and forward to suit the 

 fancy of a moment ; yet prior to each of these changes it has been confidently affirmed 

 that such lines of boundary mark a double hiatus, the rocks on one side being un- 

 doubtedly Archfeans aud those on the other the equivalents of the Ordovicians. 



The true unconformable boundary in the province of Ulster for the most part is 

 ignored, and, as it suits the fanc}^ some of the rocks below it may be or may not be 

 included in the Ordo\iciaus. 



It was also pointed out that Drs. Callaway and Hull are the great advocates of 

 the existence of Archaean rocks in Ireland, but as doctors' evidence nearly invariably 

 differs, these doctors do not agree, as whenever one of these eminent observers says the 

 rocks are Archaean, the other says they are not, neither of them agreeing in any 

 place. It is therefore suggested that as such eminent observers disagree ordinar}^ 

 geologists may toss up to know in what age the Great Architect originally 

 intended to place the rocks. 



Sub- Section C. 



1. liecent Researches in Bench Cavern, Brixlmm, Devon. 

 Bij William Pengelly, F.R.S., F.G.S. 



As long ago as 18-39 the workmen in a limestone quarry on the southern shore 

 of Torbay, and adjacent to the town of Brixham, laid bare at the back of the 

 quarry the greater part of a vertical dyke composed of red earth and angular 

 pieces of limestone. The quarrying operations, then discontinued, were resumed 

 in 1861, when the entire dyke was disclosed, and among the materials of an inco- 

 herent part of it which fell down were found some hundreds of osseous remains, 

 including skulls, jaws, teetli, vertebrae, portions of horns, bones, and pieces of bones 

 ^identified by Mr. W. A. Sanford, F.G.S., as relics of the cave-hyjena, wolf, fox 

 (two species), bear, wild-bull, reindeer, hare, and arvicola (two "species). The 

 hyaena was by very much the most prevalent form ; but there was nothing indi- 

 cating that he found an habitual home there — not a coprolite was met with, nor was 

 there a single bone scored with his teeth-marks, or liroken after any of his well- 

 known modes. The entire absence of anything betokening the existence of mau 

 was equally marked. It must be remembered, however, that the finds then met 

 ■with were all from a mass of heterogeneous materials which had filled a fissure 

 nowhere more than two feet wide and in places not more than a very few inches — 

 not from a cavern in the proper sense of that term. 



Adjacent to the left bottom corner of the dyke was the mouth of a low narrow 

 tunnel, having a floor of stalagmite and extending into the hill to an unknown 

 distance, but certainly upwards of thirty feet. The proprietor of the quarry declined 

 to allow any scientific investigations to be made, stating that he meant to make 

 such researches himself, but this was never done. 



In September 1885, Mr. W. Else, Curator of the Museum of the Torquay 

 Natural History Society, obtained permission from the gentlemen into whose hands 

 the property had passed, to make such explorations as he might find desirable both 

 in the dyke and in the tunnel ; and from that date he has spent on the work all 

 the odds and ends of time he has been able to command. His more recent 

 researches have been mainly carried on iu the tunnel, where he found the stalag- 



