Correspondence — Soivard Fox. 93' 



therefore concludes that the animal remains have been washed out 

 of a hyaena-den, which then existed at a higher level, and carried 

 down deep into the rock, into the cave in which they were found, 

 along with the clay and pebbles brought down in flood-time from 

 the Yoredale and Millstone Grit hills. 



The area of the Victory Quarry must then have been at the 

 bottom of a valley, instead of in its present position on the divide. 

 The denudation of the limestone which has taken place since that 

 time is estimated at not less than 330 feet — an amount sufficient to 

 destroy the ravine formed by the stream above the bone-cave, and 

 all the caves and rock-shelters in the district, which were accessible 

 to the Upper Pliocene mammalia. 



The author appends a map illustrating the physical geography 

 of the British Isles in Upper Pliocene time. In it the British ai'ea 

 is represented as joined to the Continent by a barrier of land, ex- 

 tending from the Straits of Dover, westward, as far as the 100 fathom 

 line in the Atlantic, which sweeps southward from Scandinavia, off 

 the West of Ireland, into the Bay of Biscay. There were then no 

 physical barriers to forbid the migration of Macliairodus, Mastodon, 

 Elephas meridionalis, and the rest, from Central and Southern France 

 into Britain. They could find their way freely from the valleys of 

 the Loire and the Garonne, across the valley now occupied by the 

 English Channel, into England and, it may be added, Ireland. Over 

 this area the animals migrated in the Upper Pliocene age. The 

 discovery of a few of them in Derbyshire is to be looked upon as 

 a monument of their former existence over the whole of this region. 

 It is also a striking example of the great destruction of the surface 

 which has taken place since that time, and of the imperfection of the 

 geological record. It is the only cave in Europe that has yielded 

 remains of the remote Pliocene Epoch. 



PTERASPIS IN NOETH CORNWALL. 



Sir, — In Dr. H, Woodward's description of Homalonotus Barratti^ 

 n.sp., in your last number he mentions that I recorded the occurrence 

 otPteraspis at Trevone in a paper which appeared in your Magazine, 

 Dec. IV, Vol. VII, p. 146. This error happened owing to a stupid 

 oversight of ray own. I did find a portion of a Ganoid fish in the 

 blue shales of Trevone which was recognized by Dr. Smith 

 Woodward as undoubtedly Devonian, and belonging to a genus 

 not yet described. Specimens of the same form, he said, were in 

 the late Mr. Pengelly's collection. The plate showed the internal 

 structure and the surface was ornamented with small bosses, but he 

 said it was distinct from Steganodictyum (Pteraspis) , Kay Lankester, 



In my table showing the Distribution of Fossils on the North 

 Coast of Cornwall, south of the Camel, published in the Transactions 

 of the Eoyal Geological Society of Cornwall, 1901, vol. xii, part 7, 

 Pteraspis is not recorded north of Bedruthan. 



