220 report— 1877. 



a very small goat, but evidently of an adult. It is smaller than the humerus 

 of a true Shetland sheep with which I compared it, and besides the narrower 

 fossa, which you refer to, there are other points in which it differs from the 

 same bono in the sheep." Mr. Davies goes on to remark on the state of pre- 

 servation of the bone, which leads him to think it must be of comparatively 

 recent age. This, however, is the common condition of bones from the clay 

 of the Victoria Cave, and has been already mentioned in a previous report *. 

 Dr. Buckland found this also to be the case with bones of equal antiquity in 

 Kirkdale Cave, which in many ways is comparable with the Victoria Cave. In 

 this case he proved by experiments that " nearly the whole of their original 

 gelatine has been preserved ;" and cites other instances of preservation in 

 stiff clay f. We cannot, therefore, take the condition of this bone to be any 

 evidence against its antiquity, but rather the reverse ; for, as a rule, the 

 chief parts of the bones in the upper beds in the cave are much decayed. 



The actual finding of remains of man or his works in the cave is, after all, 

 a matter of little importance. It would, at most, only give completeness in 

 this particular instance to the picture of the life of the period. That the 

 fauna found there in beds beneath the glacial clay at the entrance was con- 

 temporary with man in other parts of Britain and Europe, is generally 

 admitted without dispute. If there were an absence of evidence of his pre- 

 sence in the North of England at this time, it could not in any way invalidate 

 the proofs of his coexistence with the same fauna, and presumably at the 

 samo time, in the South of England in days before the last great advance of 

 cold conditions in the North J. 



Report of the Committee, consisting of Sir W. Thomson, F.R.S., 

 Major-General Strachey, F.R.S., Captain Douglas Gaxton, 

 F.R.S., Mr. G. F. Deacon, Mr. Rogers Field, Mr. E. Roberts, 

 and Mr. James N. Shoolbred {Secretary) , appointed for the purpose 

 of considering the Datum Level of the Ordnance Survey of Great. 

 Britain, ivith a view to its establishment on a surer foundation 

 than hitherto. 



This Committee was appointed in 1875 at the Bristol Meeting to inquire into 

 some uncertainties (alleged to exist by Mr. J. N. Shoolbred in his communi- 

 cation to the Association " On the Half-Tide Level at Liverpool ") as to the 

 exact position of the Datum Level of the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain. 



It may be prefaced that the Ordnance datum is described in the 'Abstract 

 of Levelling in England and Wales,' 1861, as follows: — "The datum level 

 for Great Britain is the level of mean tide at Liverpool, as determined by our 

 own observations ; it is -^ of an inch above the mean tidal level obtained 

 from the records of the self-recording tide-gauge on the St. George's Pier, 

 Liverpool." 



The level of the sill (long ago removed) of the Old Dock at Liverpool 

 is the datum to which the records in question of the gauge on the St. 



* Third Keport, 1875, p. 171. 

 t 'Beliquioo Diluviante,' p. 13. 



| See also " Ou the Age of the Hyrena-bed at the Victoria Cave, Settle, and its bearing 

 on the Antiquity of Man," by the writer, 'Quart. Journ. Anthropol, Inst.' 1877. 



