Notices of Memoirs — A Hycena-den in Ireland. 127 



or even a hundred times greater than that advanced in recent years 

 by the champions of high isostasy ".^ If this opinion, the result of 

 very careful mathematical studies, be put aside as a pendulum- 

 swing in the opposite direction to that of the isostasy enthusiasts, 

 the adoption of a mean position would still diminish our belief in 

 the possibility of explaining great thicknesses of shallow-water 

 deposits by the sole process of isostatic adjustment. 



I. — A Hx^NA-DEN IN Ireland. 

 The Exploration of Castlepook Cave, County Cork : being the 

 Third Keport from the Committee appointed to explore 

 Irish Caves. By E. F. Scharff, H. J. Seymour, and E. T. 

 Newton. Proc. Koy. Irish Acad., vol. xxxiv, sect. B, No. 3, 

 pp. 33-72, pis. v-vii, January, 1918. 



THE last work of the accomplished and enthusiastic Irish cave- 

 explorer, the late Mr. K.. J. Ussher, was the careful examination 

 of the Castlepook cave, co. Cork, which is of much interest as being 

 further south than any cave previously dealt with in Ireland. It is 

 formed as usual by the widening of joints in the Carboniferous 

 Limestone, and the deposits on the floor consist not only of the 

 ordinary cave-earth and stalagmite but also of sand and gravel 

 introduced by water. The cave, in fact, must have been subjected 

 to numerous inundations, and it can never have been suitable for 

 habitation by man. As described by Professor H. J. Seymour, all 

 the pebbles in the introduced gravel are of local origin, whereas 

 many of those in the boulder-clay of the surrounding country are 

 granites from a considerable distance. Some of the deposits 

 containing bones may therefore be of pre-Glacial date. The lowest 

 layer yields especially remains of a brown bear ( Vrsus arctos) as 

 large as the American Grizzly — certainly not the familiar cave-bear. 

 The next layer in some places is crowded with the bones, teeth, and 

 coprolites of the cave-hyeena, with remains of the reindeer and the 

 young mammoth which it dragged into the cave for food. The 

 discovery of a hysena-den in Ireland is especially interesting ; and 

 the proof that the hyaena and reindeer Avere contemporaneous is 

 important. As might be exf)ected, all the remains of the reindeer 

 are very fragmentary ; but Dr. H. F. Scharlf, who reports on the 

 mammals, has studied all the known Irish specimens of reindeer, 

 including a fine skull from a bog near Ashbourne, co. Meath, and 

 concludes that they represent a peculiar race which he names 

 Rangifer tara?'idus hibernicus. Among truly Pleistocene mammals 

 there are also the Arctic fox, wolf, hare, Scandinavian lemming, 

 a new form of Arctic lemming, and the Irish deer. Numerous bones 

 of birds, determined by Mr. E. T. Newton, also occur, but do not 

 include any extinct or noteworthy species. A. S. W. 



^ " The Strength of the Earth's Crust " : Journ. Geol. (Chicago), vol. xxii, 

 p. 313, 1914. 'Ihe whole investigation is in eleven sections, scattered through 

 vols, xxii-iii, 1914-15. 



