Notices of Memoirs—Pre- Glacial Man in Britain. Od 
fossil Mollusca and Echinoderms, is clearly proved to be of com- 
paratively shallow-water origin, whereas the habitat of the existing 
Hexactinellids is distinctly in deep water, though an exception to 
this rule is known in the occurrence of a species of Cystispongia in 
the Gulf of Mexico at no greater depth than 120 feet. 
These Miocene Hexactinellids are referred to the genus Craticularia, 
in which the nodes of the spicules are solid. ‘There are excellent 
illustrations of the structure of the surface layers and of the interior 
mesh of the sponge-wall, as well as of the secondary changes due to 
fossilization. The Lithistid sponges are less perfectly preserved, 
and are referred to the genera Astrocladia, Siphonia, Jerea, Meta, 
and Chenendopora. These sponges are probably closely related to 
the Miocene sponges, from the province of Oran in Algeria, dis- 
covered by Pomel,! but as this author has only described the outer 
form and canal structure, disregarding the all-important features of 
the minute spicular structure, it is impossible to make an exact 
comparison with them. ‘The presence of fossil Hexactinellids in the 
Miocene strata to the north and south of the Mediterranean is of 
special interest from the recent discovery of existing sponges of this 
order in deep water off the south-east coast of Sardima. 
Creu ale 
I1I.—Recent Opinions on InrercuaciaAL AND PrE-cGLaciaL Man 
EN BRrratin. 
ie the first part of his paper on “The Newer Pliocene Period in 
England” (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxxvi. 1880, p. 497) 
Mr. 8. V. Wood gives his reasons for concluding “that the Hoxne 
paleolithic brickearth, so well known to geologists by the descrip- 
tion of Prof. Prestwich, is of the age of the Chalky [Boulder] Clay 
itself, though of the latest part of it.’ In fact (to quote from the 
second part of his paper, Ibid. vol. xxxvill. 1882, p. 669), he “ de- 
scribed how the ice of the Chalky Clay at its greatest extension in 
Hast Anglia (and probably as-the first step in the general recession 
of the ice of the great glaciation), by receding from the plateaux and 
uncovering the moraine there for vegetation to spring up on it, but still 
occupying the valleys, had intercepted the drainage from the plateaux, 
and so given rise to the lagoon deposit of Hoxne, with its paleeo- 
lithic implements, mammalian and arboreal remains.” 
Referring also to “the bed of brickearth at Mildenhall, which is 
overlain by the Chalky Clay as well as underlain by it (and in which 
Mr. Skertchly has found paleolithic implements), Mr. Wood has 
expressed his opinion that it ‘was formed by the drainage issuing 
westwards from the inosculating valleys of the Little Ouse and 
Waveney and from the valley of the Lark, when, though the ice 
was wasting and had withdrawn from those valleys, a large body of 
it still remained ” (Ibid., vols. xxxvi. p. 499, xxxvili. pp, 672, 673). 
On the other hand, in the last number of the Proceedings of the 
Norwich Geological Society (vol. i. part vi. 1882), Mr. H. Prigg, in 
describing the implement-bearing beds in the Valley of the Lark, 
1 Paléontologie de la Province d’Oran, Spongiares, 1872. 
