144 Obituary. 



curious variety of pitchy copper ore, probably Turgite, from Corn- 

 wall. — Chemical Neios, Feb. 16, 1866. 



Fossils fkom the Diluvium or the Tiber. — M. de Yerneuil 

 has lately obtained a small series of fossil bones from the diluvium of 

 the Tiber. They consist of teeth of a large hippopotamus (probably 

 H. major), teeth of rhinoceros, wild boar, ox, horse, and deer. At 

 Ponte Molle the bones are most abundant, but they are better pre- 

 served at Mont Sacre, in the diluvium of the Aniene. — Bull. Soc. 

 Geol. Fr. vol. xxii. 1865, p. 521. 



The Ossiferous Caverns of Belgium. — A report was recently 

 presented to the Belgian Government by Monsieur Dupont, of 

 Dinant, on the scientific explorations lately made in the caverns on 

 the banks of the Lesse, to November 1865.^ 



The cavern of Chaleux has, in particular, yielded a most abundant 

 harvest of remains of pre-historic man. Besides great numbers of 

 worked bones, there were found more than 30,000 cut flints, several 

 cubic metres of bones of animals, including more than 900 teeth of 

 horses ; implements of reindeer horn of various forms, as arrow- 

 heads, spatular and pointed instruments, and polishing tools. Pieces 

 of fluor-spar, and numbers of fossil shells, from the " Calcaire 

 grossier," pierced with holes ; some jet, and the teeth and a 

 vertebra of a shark, have also been discovered, together with Ologiste 

 (Hematite), iron-pyrites, and pieces of Fumay slate rudely carved. 



The animals eaten included, besides the horse, the brown bear, 

 chamois, wild goat, reindeer, fox, badger, hare, wild boar, and 

 probably the water-rat, as remains of several hundreds of these 

 animals were likewise found among the ashes and debris of the 

 ancient hearth. 



In the middle of the fire-place was also discovered the " fore-arm " 

 (s^c) of a mammoth (Elephas primigenius) , which M. Dupont con- 

 siders was placed there as a "fetish charm." 



After the discovery made by Messrs. Lartet and Christy of a 

 drawing of a mammoth upon a flake of ivory, in the ossiferous 

 cavern of La Madeleine,^ we need no longer doubt that the Cave- 

 men of France and Belgium were contemporaries of the mammoth, 

 and sometimes, though rarely, destroyed one by stratagem, or in the 

 chase. 



Prop. W. T. Brande. — -We regret to notice the death of the 

 veteran chemist, Prof. W. T. Brande, D.C.L., F.E.S. Besides 

 numerous works on Chemistry, he published, in 1816, a descriptive 

 catalogue of the British specimens deposited in the Geological Col- 

 lection of the Koyal Institution, and in 1817 the "Outlines of 

 Geology," being the substance of a course of lectures delivered at 

 the Eoyal Institution in 1816 ; a second edition of this work was 

 issued in 1829. He died on February 11th, aged 81. A new 

 edition of his dictionary is now being re -edited. 



^ Extracted, in part, from the Gloucester Journal, December 30, 1865. 

 2 See the Geological Magazine, toI. ii., p. 480. 



