OSSIFEROUS CAVES OF GOWER. 503 



high water. Great difficulty was encountered in conducting 

 the excavations, from the cemented breccia of the floor being 

 too hard for the pickaxe, and too cavernous to blast. The 

 following section, taken near the middle, is given by Mr. 

 Benson as showing the average thickness and succession of 

 the various deposits : — 



1. At the bottom, and lying immediately above the rocky 

 floor, patches of yellow sand, a few inches thick, abounding 

 with shells of Litorina rudis and Litorina litoralis, in groups 

 and in every stage of growth, implying as Mr. Benson 

 remarks, ' that when these sea mollusca lived, the floor must 

 have been below the level of high water.' Besides these 

 marine forms, a smaller number of shells of Clausilia nigri- 

 cans were found in the same sand, together with bones of 

 birds and of a species of Arvicola. The Clausilice were en- 

 veloped by — 



2. A thin layer of stalagmite, which could not have been 

 formed until the floor of the cavern had been elevated above 

 the level of high water. 



3. Upon this stalagmite, a bed of blackish or dark-coloured 

 sand varying in thickness, as I have been informed by 

 Colonel Wood, from 18 inches to 2 feet, and containing a 

 mass of bones consisting almost entirely of various parts of 

 the skeleton of an Elephant, which I have ascertained to be 

 Elephas antiquus, including numerous molars. These bones 

 when first exposed were quite soft and friable, crumbling 

 under the fingers when handled ; but after a few days' expo- 

 sure to dry air they became hard and susceptible of repair. 

 The tooth of a Badger (Meles Taxus) and of a Putorius were 

 found at the lower part of the same sand. 



4. Immediately above the black sand, and at places almost 

 intermixing with it, a deposit of ' red soil ' or ochreous cave 

 loam, containing remains of the same species of Elephant, and 

 several lower jaws, with detached upper molars, vertebrse, 

 and bones of the extremities of a species of Rhinoceros, which 

 I have named Rhinoceros hemitoechus, distinct alike from the 

 Rhin. tichorhinus of the superficial gravels, and from Rhin. 

 leptorhinus of the Sub-Apennine Pliocene deposits. Along 

 with these were found bones of Hyaena, Wolf, Ursus, Bos, and 

 Gervus. This stratum varied from 1 to 2 feet in thickness, 

 from the intermixture, in some places of loose limestone 

 breccia, and in others of sand free from bones. The breccia 

 is represented in Mr. Benson's section as a separate bed. 

 The blackish sand and cave-earth beds may be regarded as 

 different conditions of the same deposit. Mr. Benson re- 

 marks that this latter was the only deposit found in the cave 

 similar to the soil (ochreous loam) usually met with in bone- 



