Reports and Proceedings. 183 



thousand sections of igneous rocks ; Ansell's diffusiometer ; models 

 of coke ovens, machinery, etc., revolving stereoscopes ; Silurian, 

 Carboniferous, and Drift fossils from the district, in addition to the 

 large collection in the society's museum ; mining and scientific 

 diagrams ; photographs of leading members at recent meeting of 

 British Association, — Mr. David Forbes, F.E.S., delivered an address 

 " On the Igneous Eocks of South Staffordshire," in vfhich he stated 

 that he believed all the igneous rocks of the district belong to the 

 same class, and that they were erupted at a later period than the 

 Carboniferous age. Altogether a very agreeable evening was 

 spent. 



Bath Literaet and Philosophical Institution. — A Meet- 

 ing of the Members of this Association was held on Friday 

 evening, January 12th, the President, the Eev. Prebendary 

 Scarth, in the chair. Mr. W. Boyd Dawkins, M.A. (Oxon), 

 F.G.S., of London, read a paper on " Bone Caverns and Eiver 

 Deposits." 



In the course of the making of the Great Western Eailway 

 that winds along the banks of the Avon Valley, many gravel 

 beds were intersected, and a large quantity of remains found pre- 

 served in them. Those in the cutting at Newton St. Loe prove 

 to belong to the elephant and horse. In the cutting at Freshford 

 Station, besides these two animals, the great musk-sheep had been 

 found by Mr. Moore, F,G.S., the reindeer by the Eev. H, H. 

 Winwood, and the bison by himself. He stated that both the 

 gravel and the included remains at Freshford appeared to have 

 been deposited under conditions, to a certain extent, arctic; that 

 the Avon in those days was heavily burdened with ice, and, 

 perhaps, frost-bound for the greater part of the year; and that 

 the pebbles of unequal size, some angular, some waterworn, and 

 none sorted, as in the rivers of Britain now, were then embedded 

 in ground-ice, and floated down till the miniature bergs melted, 

 and their burden of pebbles, sand, and brick-earth was deposited. 

 The gravel-pit at Locksbrook, near Bath, has added three more 

 animals to the list of those from the ancient deposits of the Avon. 

 The Eev, H, H, Winwood, to whom Natural History owes so much 

 in Bath, has obtained from it, remains that belong to the lion, 

 Irish elk, and the tichorhine rhinoceros, Mr, Dawkins then re- 

 ferred to the exploration of the Wookey Hole Cavern by Mr. 

 Ayshford Sanford and himself, an account of which is printed in the 

 eighteenth Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, 

 The list of the animals obtained from it comprises the cave-hyaena, 

 cave-lion, and cave-bear, the brown bear, the wolf, fox, mammoth, 

 two species of extinct rhinoceros, horse, urus, Irish elk, red deer, 

 reindeer, and, last of all, man. The rude flint implements, and the 

 fragments of calcined bone — the relics of his fires — underneath the 

 old floors of the cave, prove that he co-existed with the other 

 animals found in the cave. The whole number of animals living 

 in Britain during Pleistocene times consist of fifty-three species ; of 



