520 OSSIFEROUS CAVES OF GOVTER. 



was a great talus of sand accumulated upon enormous masses 

 of concrete breccia lying huddled in great confusion. 

 The sand was removed ' in order to ascertain whether it 

 was possible to penetrate into a cavern.' The operations 

 were commenced in January last, and I am indebted to 

 Colonel Wood's letter for the details which follow. After 

 clearing away the bank of sand in front, a thin stratum of 

 stalagmite was discovered stretching right across the fissure 

 from wall to wall, and close up to the roof, there not being 

 more than a foot of space intervening. They were occasion- 

 ally formed by connecting pipes of stalactite. In this con- 

 tracted channel two lower jaws of Mustela foina, decidedly 

 new to the English fossil Fauna, 1 together with some fish- 

 bones, were found resting upon the stalagmite ; also several 

 jaws of Foxes with some bird-bones. On pushing the ex- 

 cavation further in, a greater depth of sand was attained, 

 amounting to 4 feet, when several very large balls of coprolites 

 were encountered, indicating the presence of Carnivora. The 

 following day some fine remains of Felis spelcea were dis- 

 covered : among which were a fragment of the right upper 

 jaw containing the carnassier and adjoining premolar in situ, 

 also a very perfect upper canine, 5 inches long, some de- 

 tached premolars, and two incisors. Proceeding inwards and 

 still deeper, the lumbar vertebra of a Rhinoceros turned up, 

 and close by it the vertebra of a fish, both encrusted with 

 ferruginous sand, and in the same mineral condition. On 

 digging down through the bed of sand, which attained an 

 extreme depth of 9 feet, a second floor occurred, composed, as 

 usual in the Gower caves, of angular fragments of limestone 

 cemented together by calcareous infiltration, irregularly in- 

 terspersed with concrete and detached pieces of stalagmite, 

 and occasionally discoloured by ferruginous sand. At tbe 

 bottom of the sand and resting upon this brecciated floor, a 

 large block of limestone was laid bare, displaying the ex- 

 posed surface and edges smoothed and polished by friction. 

 The carboniferous limestone of Gower weathers everywhere 

 into a rough honeycombed or unequal surface ; and Colonel 

 Wood infers that the polish upon this block was caused by 

 the rubbing against it of large Carnivora, as in the pedestal 

 of Zahnloch described by Goldfuss. 2 About 2 feet further in 

 and beyond this block, the perfectly entire and anchylosed 

 radius and ulna of a Rhinoceros were exhumed. The entire 

 humerus and several vertebra? of an Elephant, together with 



1 These specimens of Mustela were I Putorius, and with Zorilla Capensis and 

 carefully compared in the British Mu- : Mephitis Americana. — [Ed.] 

 seum with Mustela martes and Mustela j 2 Cited in Bucldand's ' Reliquiae Di- 

 zibellina, also with various species of luviana?,' p. 132. 



