538 



OSSIFEROUS CAVES OP GOWEE. 



With respect to the point I had particularly in view, viz. the relation 

 of the Gower Caves to the Boulder-clay, I am unable as yet to form a 

 decided opinion. I got the Boulder-clay within a mile of the raised 

 beach, but on opposite sides of the point of Ehos Sili. It spreads from 

 the sea-shore to, as you are aware, the top of the hills. In Ehos Sili 

 Bay I found intercalated in it, at an elevation almost exactly corre- 

 sponding to the raised beach on the opposite side of the promontory, a 

 bed of shingle containing several species of recent shells, but not one of 

 the species occurring in the raised beach. Yet the two would appear 

 to be synchronous ; the difference might arise from the one being on 

 an exposed and open coast, and the other in a sheltered bay. The 

 subject requires a fuller and more lengthened inquiry. (J. Prestwich.) 



II. — Note on the Occurrence of wrought Flints, in association 



with two extinct Species of Ehinoceros, 

 Cave, Gower. 1 



&c, in ' Long Hole' 



On May 30, 1860, 1 communicated to the Geological Society a memoir 

 on the Ossiferous Caves of Gower, founded on the joint researches of 

 Lieut.-Col. Wood and myself. The main object of that communication 

 was to show first what the Fauna of these caves was, as compared with 

 the other ossiferous caves of Britain. 2. The presence in it of species of 

 Elephant and Ehinoceros, which had not previously been recognized as 

 occurring in the ossiferous caves. 3. The continuity, in the Gower 

 Fauna, of Upper-Pliocene and Glacial mammals, without an apparent 

 break ; and lastly, the epoch whence the Gower Fauna dated. Some 

 of the conclusions arrived at met in discussion with sharp criticism and 

 opposition from leading authorities on the newer Pliocene and Drift 

 deposits. Being desirous of concentrating attention on the points 

 above indicated, I purposely excluded, with a single exception, from 

 that memoir any reference to the then newly-agitated question, which 

 attracted at the time, as it now does, so much attention, namely, the 

 bearing of the Gower Cave evidence upon the antiquity of man. That 

 exception was the presumable age of the famous human skeleton, so 

 familiarly known, through the writings of Buckland, as the ' Eed Lady ' 

 of Paviland, found associated, under questionable circumstances, with 

 the skull of Elephas primigenius ; and the inference drawn was against 

 their having been cotemporary individuals. Lieut.-Col. Wood and 

 myself had found numerous wrought flints and some bone weapons in 

 Paviland ; but the cave deposits there had been so disturbed by pre- 

 vious excavations of an old date, that none of the instances was free 

 from the taint of suspicious occurrence. As a rule, the Paviland flint- 

 flakes were undistinguishable in form from those of the Grotto of 

 Maccagnone. 



Last autumn (1861) Lieut.-Col. Wood discovered a new ossiferous 

 cave in Gower, which supplied conclusive evidence respecting the con- 



1 This paper was commenced in 1862, 

 but was never completed. The defi- 

 ciency has been made up from the au- 

 thor's Note-books. One of the main 

 facts, however, contained in the paper 

 was published by Dr. Falconer in the 

 'Annals and Magazine of Natural His- 



tory,' for October, 1864, in a brief notice 

 entitled ' On the Asserted Occurrence of 

 Flint-knives under a skull of the ex- 

 tinct Rhinoceros hemitcechus in an ossi- 

 ferous cave in the peninsula of Gower.' 

 -[Ed.] 



