OSSIFEBOUS CAVES OF GOWEE. 531 



and for the conviction, that notwithstanding apparent ano- 

 malies in the restriction of certain species to certain caves, all 

 the extinct mammalia of the Grower caverns might belong to 

 one Fauna, and to the same unbroken geological period. 



There cannot be a doubt that the thin beds of marine sand in 

 'Bacon Hole ' and 'Minchin Hole,' containing the association 

 of Litorina litorea, L. litoralis, and L. rudis, were deposited on 

 the floors of these caverns before they rose above the level of 

 the sea. 1 The ossiferous beds are in immediate and undis- 

 turbed superposition upon the sands, and it would seem clear 

 that they belong to the same period. The species of large 

 Pachydermata, Ruminants, and Carnivora, were living upon 

 the emerged land of Gower before the floor of the caves rose 

 above the level of the sea ; but the great accumulation of 

 their bones now seen hi the cave deposits took place during 

 a long lapse of time after the rise had been accomplished. 



The raised sea-beach of Mewslade Bay, and the marine 

 sands and gravels of ' Bacon Hole ' and « Bosco's Den ' are so 

 nearly in the same line of section, and they differ so little in 

 level, that there is hardly any room to doubt that they belong 

 to the same series of deposits, and to the same period of 

 upheaval. The species of mollusca found in the raised beach 

 are more numerous than those that were detected in the 

 caves ; but the three species of Litorina were common to 

 both, and all the forms are of prevailing recent species. 



Mr. Prestwich has expressed his opinion in very guarded 

 terms upon the evidences of the Boulder-clay deposit on the 

 highland of Cefn Bryn, and in Rhos Sili Bay, and on its 

 relation to the caves and raised beach. But I am fully pre- 

 pared to accept the inference, to which that cautious observer 

 leans, that they would both appear to be of a more recent 

 date than the Boulder-clay. 



Proofs of the comparatively modern epoch of the cave 

 deposits and raised beach may also be inferred from the 

 slight amount of inroad which the sea has made upon them 

 since the period of their deposition. A mile of raised beach 

 still survives in Mewslade Bay, perched, as Mr. Prestwich 

 felicitously expressed it, upon the out-cropping edges of the 

 limestone strata of the old cliff, which is but very little 

 changed in the shape of its escarpment since the beach was 

 formed, although still in close proximity to the sea. The line 

 of coast in which the group of ossiferous caves between 

 'Bacon Hole ' and ' Minchin ' are situated presents a broadside 

 to the waves of the Bristol Channel. These caves overhang 



1 Mr. Starling Benson distinctly refers 

 to the bed in Bacon Hole ' as the re- 

 mains of an ancient littoral beach found 



m m 2 



below the cave deposit.' — Account of the 

 Cave-Deposit of Bacon Hole, p. 15. 



