118 (7. A. Matley — The Arenig Rocks near Aherdaron. 



of tons were taken out of the cavern, and with what result ? So 

 far as human bones were concerned, Buckland and McEnery were 

 justified to the letter. Not a single human bone was proved from 

 the cave earth (McEnery's 'Diluvium '). The human bones in the 

 black mould of the cave were introduced by man, were not Palseolithic, 

 and the cautious reasoning of the great explorers had saved them 

 from what might have well been to them an everlasting blunder. 



As to the flints, the two clerics were both mistaken. The flints 

 were indeed coeval with the extinct mammalia, and they certainly 

 were older than the reputed date of the Noachian deluge. What, 

 then, can we fling in the face of these immortals ? Just that they 

 carried caution to excess — a vice which is better than most virtues. 



Buckland and McEnery at any rate took a sane view of 

 stalagmite and stone implements. They did not contend that the 

 Kent's Cavern stalagmite entered in the form of a magma, or that the 

 flints were not artificial, or that in a tunnel cave bones fell through 

 the roof, or that Kent's Cavern was a mine in which that grand beast 

 the hippopotamus (which never was in the cave) worked as a beast 

 of burden. Yet all these things were gravely or even indignantly 

 suggested to crush the unorthodoxy, scientific or theological, of 

 the harassed explorers. But it has remained for the second year 

 of the twentieth century to see an article in the Geological Magazine 

 on the Progress of the Modern Theory of the Antiquity of Man 

 with no reference in it to the most important literature of the 

 subject, the literature of Kent's Cavern. 



IV. — Notes on the Arenig Eocks near Aberdaron, 

 Carnarvonshire. 



By Charles A. Matley, B.Sc, F.G.S. 



Introduction. 



THE geology of the Lleyn peninsula has from time to time 

 attracted the attention of geologists, and several workers have 

 added much to our knowledge of this district ; but their researches 

 have been mainly confined to (1) the strip of ancient rocks (usually 

 assigned to the pre-Cambrian) in the west between Forth Dinlleyn 

 and Bardsey Island, and (2) the igneous rocks lying in the Ordovician 

 ground which occupies the eastern and larger portion of the peninsula. 

 Thus the Ordovician sedimentary rocks have largely escaped attention, 

 a result probably also due to their monotony, to the rarity of 

 fossiliferous localities, and to the great extent to which the beds 

 are concealed beneath accumulations of drift. 



It has long been known that in certain localities these sedimentary 

 rocks are of Bala age, and that in other localities they belong to 

 the Arenig series, but the general structure of the region remains 

 obscure, for no serious attempt appears to have been made to work 

 out the detailed stratigraphy of the area or to trace the various 

 horizons zone by zone. 



From the results obtained during a short visit to Aberdaron last 

 summer the present writer is encouraged to think that such an 



