ON THE TY NEWYDD CAVES. 4.09 
was explored for a distance of over 300 ft., no floor has been reached, 
although in some places 30 to 40 ft. vertical depth has been attained, and 
the total difference of level between the highest and lowest points is 
74 ft. From the materials excavated we have obtained the following 
succession, commencing with the lowest deposit. 
A. Purely local gravel—Of the stones in this gravel Mr. Strahan 
writes: ‘All have come from the immediate neighbourhood of Ty 
Newydd, and the proportion of silurian rocks suggests that the cave 
either leads to the silurian boundary underground, or was supplied by a 
stream running over these rocks and falling into a swallow-hole when it 
passed on to the limestone.’ In this deposit we found our only two 
fossils, both waterworn fragments of molars, horse and rhinoceros sp., 
evidently introduced as pebbles with the gravel. These fossils show that 
the hills above the caves could at this time support large mammalia. 
We could find no distinction between this material and the gravels 
from below the bone beds in Ffynnon Beuno and Cae Gwyn caves,! of 
which Dr. Hicks says :? ‘The lowest deposits, consisting almost entirely of 
local materials, must have been introduced by a river’... He also 
writes in a recent letter : ‘A critical examination, such as you have since 
made, did not seem at that time necessary, but the importance of the 
difference between this and the disturbed materials in the cave was at 
once recognised. We certainly had not discovered non-local stones, but it 
was thought better to qualify the expression until the gravel had been 
more thoroughly examined, especially as bits of quartz and sand grains 
may or may not have had a local origin. The pebbles examined were all 
from local sources.’ In the western cave, Ty Newydd, this gravel had 
nearly filled the southern portions of the cave to the height of 450 ft. 
©).D. 
B. On the floor formed by this gravel the bone beds of Ffynnon Beuno 
and Cae Gwyn were found. Although at the time of their discovery the 
majority of the fossils were no longer in their original positions, 
Dr. Hicks was able to show that a massive stalagmite floor had formed 
over them.? In one part of Ffynnon Beuno cave this floor was found 
intact, with the bones adhering to its lower surface.t A floor was also 
discovered in Ty Newydd cave, in contact with the earliest gravel, and 
presumably both were formed during the same period of rest. 
C. Stalagnute floor.—In Ffynnon Beuno and Cae Gwyn this stalag- 
mite attained a thickness of 10 inches to 12 inches, while in Ty Newydd 
we found a floor, im situ, extending for nearly 70 feet, and varying in 
thickness from 18 inches to over 3 feet. For the most part this floor was 
massive or with thin sandy partings. The northern portion, however, 
was in thin layers alternating with sand, showing that some of the latter 
was introduced at this epoch. We are unable to say whether the earlier 
matrix of the Ffynnon Beuno bone beds is to be ascribed to this or the 
next stage ; probably both were represented before the disturbance of 
those caves. 
D. Beyond the northern extremity of the floor in Ty Newydd we 
observed lines of stalagmite on the walls at the same level, showing that 
part of the floor had been broken up and carried to lower levels. We 
were able to trace the beds formed of the broken fragments mixed with 
1 QJ.G.S. 1898, p. 131. 2 Ibid. 1886, p. 16, 
3 Thid, pp. 12-14. ! Proc, Geol, Assoc, 1884, pp. 13, 14. 
