Reports and Proceedings — Geological Society of London. 143 



of the area in which the fissures occur are given in the paper. 

 Three of the fissures have obviously been in contact with the 

 surface, and from these the bones appear to have been dissolved out. 

 The fourth does not reach the top of the Rag, and, further, is sealed 

 by an aragonite-lined chamber with stalactitic floor and ceiling. 

 This fissure is from 2 to 6 feet wide and about 80 feet deep, and is 

 filled with a heterogeneous collection such as constitutes the flotsam 

 and jetsam of streams, along with materials derived from the rock 

 in which the fissures occur. Several thousand bones were found, 

 also twelve species of aquatic and land shells, an entomostracan, 

 Ghara and other vegetable remains have been procured. 



The author gives reasons for concluding that the fissures have 

 never been re-opened since they were first closed by the materials 

 introduced into them by the river, and that all the. contained fossils 

 belong to one and the same geological period. He points to the 

 discovery of species not before found in Pleistocene beds as only a 

 repetition of what has occurred in other sections he has worked, 

 and remarks also that the increase of species is corroborative of a 

 suggestion of Mr. C. Reid that the more we discover of the smaller 

 creatures of this and the preceding age, the more they approximate 

 to those of our own times. Even if we were to exclude from the 

 lists all the species not previously found fossil elsewhere, we still 

 have an extensive assemblage of the older Pleistocene forms, which 

 must have lived during the filling of the fissures, and this, there- 

 fore, fixes the filling operation as having occurred in Pleistocene 

 times. 



2. " The Vertebrate Fauna collected by Mr. Lewis Abbott from 

 the Fissure near Ightham, Kent." By E. T. Newton, Esq., F.R.S., 

 F.G.S. 



The vertebrate remains collected by Mr. Lewis Abbott are passed 

 in review, and, as far as possible, specifically identified : they repre- 

 sent mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians ; but no fishes have 

 been found. In all, forty-eight different forms have been recognized; 

 three, or perhaps four, are extinct ; eleven are extinct in Britain, 

 but are still living elsewhere; twenty-one are living in Britain, but 

 are known to be Pleistocene or Forest-bed forms ; and twelve are 

 species now living in Britain which have not hitherto been 

 recognized in Pleistocene or older deposits. 



Among the more important species found in this fissure, but 

 extinct in Britain, may be noticed, besides Elephas primigenius, 

 Bhiiioceros antiquitatis, and Sycena, the TJrsus arctos, Canis lagopus, 

 Myodes torquatus, Myodes lemmus, Microtus gregalis, M. ratticeps, 

 Lagomys pusilhis, Spermophilus, and Cervus tarandus. The name of 

 Mustela robiista is proposed for some limb-bones intermediate 

 between the Polecat and Marten, and the remains of an extremely 

 small Weasel are noticed as a variety of Mustela vulgaris. Although 

 the large number of living species gives a recent aspect to this series 

 of remains, the evidence, it is believed, points rather to their being 

 all of Pleistocene age, and most nearly allied to the fauna of British 

 caves. 



