498 
LEAD-MINES IN SPAIN. 
We have, from Mr. J. Lambert, an account of the lead-mines of 
the Sierra Almagrera in the S. of Spain, in the province of Almeria. 
The principal vein occurs in clay-slate resting upon mica-slate, and 
its direction is nearly N. and S.; its greatest breadth, in 1840, was 
nine feet, its chief produce galena with carbonates of lead, iron, and 
copper: near it are the remains of old workings by the Romans, 
with large heaps cf slags and ancient scorie. At the foot of the 
Sierra Almagrera are strata of tertiary formation. We have also 
from Mr. Lambert an account of other lead-mines in the Sierra de 
Gador, between the Sierra Nevada and the Mediterranean. This 
range is principally composed of transition limestone, alternating 
‘with clay-slate and talcose slate: these mines also were worked by 
the Romans ; the lead occurs in smaJl masses or nests, and also in 
veins and branches of limited extent, which intersect each other 
and communicate with the nests. At the mine of Arnafe, a bed of 
lead one foot thick, and accompanied by clay, occurs between two 
beds of limestone. Similar beds are found in all the mines on the 
W. declivity of the Sierra. 
In the interior of the Sierra the Bed exhibit great sisi feseTSe 
forming crests and hollows, that contain the greatest masses of ore, 
conforming to all the modifications of the bed. No lead has been 
found at a greater depth than 200 yards. 
At the bottom of many fissures, fragments of ore are found asso- 
ciated with pebbles of the limestone. The best mines will soon be 
destroyed by improvident methods of working. 
PALZONTOLOGY. 
MAMMALIA.—OSSIFEROUS CAVERNS. 
Mr. R. A. C. Austen, in a notice on the bone caves of Devon- 
shire, at Torquay and Yealmton, disputes the opinion that the bones, 
in these caves, many of which are evidently gnawed, have been 
dragged in by the agency of hyenas, founding his objection on 
the assumption that modern hyznas “do not inhabit caves,’ "and 
“‘ never drag away their prey, but devour it greedily on the spot.” 
Mr. Austen must have overlooked the evidence of Busbequius, 
quoted in my ‘ Reliquiz Diluviane,’ p. 22, Ist edit., ‘“ Extrahit- 
que cadavera, portatque ad speluncam suam,” and cannot have 
heard of the gnawed bones in the Oxford Museum, extracted by 
Col. Sykes from the depth of eighteen feet in a cave, at the mouth 
of which he shot both the male and female hyzena that inhabited it, 
and descending its interior ran his head against a putrid portion 
of an ass which stuck across and obstructed the passage. 
Mr. Austen is disposed. to substitute the agency of lions for that 
of hyzenas in the work of collecting the bones that are so abundant 
in the caves of Devonshire, and correctly states that the bones of 
lions, or a large Felis, larger than a lion, have been found in nearly all 
the ossiferous caverns. Now in all.the caves of which I have any 
experience, the remains of lions are very rare in comparison with the 
