2D6 H. H. Hoivorth — The Mammoth and the GJacial Drift. 



ciation, distinctly refers the deposit to a pre-Glacial age, and speaks 

 of the Craven savage as having lived before the Great Ice-sheet 

 (Eep. Brit. Assoc, 1875, p. 173). 



In a paper on the Cave by the same author, he tells us how 

 a bed of tenacious clay with scratched Silurian and other boulders 

 was found underneath all the talus at the mouth of the cave, resting 

 on the edges of the beds containing the older mammals, and 

 dipping outwards at an angle of 40°. Mr. Tiddeman explains this 

 as the remnant of a moraine (lateral or profonde) which dammed up 

 the mouth of the cave and prevented anything but water charged 

 with fine sediment from entering it during the Glacial period. 

 Perhaps, he adds, one of the strongest pieces of evidence, that the 

 older cave animals lived in this district only at a time previous 

 to the great ice-sheet, is that, so far as we know, the remains of none 

 of them (except of Cerviis elephas) have ever been found in any 

 of the post-Glacial deposits of this district. Though so common in 

 the river gravels in the Midland and Southern Counties, they are 

 never found except in caves until we get much further south or 

 east. Leeds is, I belive, the nearest locality where they occur. 

 This would seem to imply that their remains were wiped off the 

 area by the great ice-sheet, . . . and only left in the shelter of caves 

 to which it could have no direct access" (Geol. Mag. Vol. X. p. 15). 



Writing in " Nature," the same geologist says, " A human bone or 

 fibula was certainly found beneath glacial clay in the Victoria Cave " 

 (Nature, vol. xiv. p. 505). A dispute arose afterwards as to whether 

 the fibula was human or not, but this does not aifect the issue we 

 raise. Mr. Tiddeman again says, " In the Victoria Cave the sur- 

 roundings are such that nothing but an ice-sheet could have sealed 

 up with glacial clay the remains discovered by the Committee. . . . 

 The origin of the boulders, their position, the ice-scratches on the 

 rocks hard by, all point to the time of greatest glaciation, when the 

 whole district was covered in with ice and snow of great thickness. 

 And the agent which closed the cavern and concealed the animals 

 within it must have been the same which swept the country clean 

 of their remains all around further than the eye can reach" {ib. 506.) 



In the discussion on Prof. Dawkins' paper. Sir A. Kamsay said he 

 thought the evidence for the existence of Man in the Victoria Cave 

 before the Glacial period was stronger than that against it. Prof. 

 Prestwich thought the deposits in the Victoria Cave were pre-Glacial 

 (Q.J.G.S. vol. xxxiii. p. 612). 



The next case to which I shall refer is one in which we have not 

 to deal with Mammalian remains, but with the Southern freshwater 

 shell the Cyrena Jiuminalis, which marks the Pleistocene horizon in 

 other places. 



In ISGl Professor Prestwich read a paper before the Geological 

 Society of London on the occurrence of Cyrena Jiuminalis over beds of 

 Boulder-clajr near Hull. He says there was previously no evidence 

 of direct superposition to show the age of the shell. I quite agree 

 with him that tor this reason the instance in question is important 

 if maintainable. Is it so ? In the first place in the pit where the 



