OSSIFEROUS CAVES OF GOWER. 535 



specimens in the Clarendon Museum at Oxford. Along with 

 these were found some teeth of Hippopotamus. 



18. Concluding Remarks and Inferences. 



The comparative illustrations here given are taken from 

 nearly all the principal ossiferous caverns of England, and 

 they furnish no evidence of a Cave Fauna older than that of 

 the Gower caves. 



But there are some weighty objections to he explained. 

 The Boulder-clay of the Norwich coast is in direct super- 

 position to the ' Elephant ' or ' Submerged Forest ' bed at 

 Happisburgh and Mundesley, which has been cited by all 

 authorities as yielding remains of Elephants, Rhinoceros, 

 and Hippopotamus. I found that the Elephants belonged to 

 two species E. (Lox.) meridionalis and E. antiquus. The 

 former has nowhere in England been found at a higher level 

 than the ' submerged forest,' while the latter occurs abund- 

 antly in the Mud-bed of Bracklesham, in Grays Thurrock, 

 and other localities in the Valley of the Thames. In like 

 manner, the Rhinoceros which prevails in the ' submerged 

 forest' belongs, as I have ascertained by recent investiga- 

 tion, to a species, R. Etruscus, which occurs very abundantly, 

 in company with E. meridionalis, in the deposits of the Val 

 d'Arno ; but which, in England, like E. meridionalis, is never 

 seen above the level of the Norfolk 'Elephant-bed.' The 

 remains of the two Elephants have never, I believe, been 

 discovered together in situ in this deposit. Although occur- 

 ring in immense abundance, they are either brought up by 

 the dredge from the Oyster Bank, or found stranded on the 

 beach after heavy equinoctial gales. Molars of E. antiquus 

 are also dredged up on the Essex coast, off the ' West Rocks.' 

 There were a great many found thus, in the collection of the 

 late Mr. Brown, of Stanway, but I never saw any molars of 

 E. meridionalis among them. It is possible, therefore, that 

 the molars of the two species found under the sea, on the 

 Norwich coast, may be derived from beds of different ages. 

 On a review of the general bearing of the evidence, it 

 appears to me that the following conclusions are consistent 

 with the existing state of our knowledge : — 



1. That the Gower caves have probably been filled up with 

 their Mammalian remains since the deposition of the Boulder- 

 clay. 



2. That there are no Mammalian remains found elsewhere 

 in the ossiferous caves of Britain referable to a Fauna of a 

 more ancient geological date. 



3. That Elephas (Loxodon) meridionalis and Rhinoceros 



