588 



PRIMEVAL MAN, 



anterior to the Boulder-clay of the glacial submergence. In 

 the supplement to the fifth edition, published in 1859, the 

 following is the only passage having reference to the age of 

 the caverns : ' To what part of the Pliocene period the cave 

 animals of Great Britain should be referred is still a vexed 

 question. There seems, however, no reason at present to 

 suppose any of them more ancient than the Norwich Crag ; 

 and many caves may have remained open during the Glacial 

 and Post-Glacial eras, while the fauna was gradually chang- 

 ing, so that the remains found in them may not always belong 

 to strictly contemporary quadrupeds.' (Op. cit. p. 8.) No 

 language could have been used better calculated to express 

 the conjectural and hesitating views then entertained re- 

 specting the caves : they might be of any age before the Glacial 

 period or after it. The late Joshua Trimmer, an experienced 

 observer of weight on all that concerns Quaternary deposits, 

 expressed the following opinion in his ' Generalizations re- 

 specting the Norfolk Erratics ' : ' With regard to Mam- 

 malian remains, I believe that we have two Elephantine 

 groups, one preceding the submergence of the erratic period, 

 and the other inhabiting the country at the close of the period 

 of elevation. To the former are to be referred the Mam- 

 malian Crag, and the remains of the bone-caverns in 

 general.' ' 



The determination of the Cave fauna was, in some respects, 

 in a similarly backward state. Not a suspicion even was 

 entertained, so far as published evidence shows, that any 

 other Elephant than the Mammoth, or Bhinoceros other than 

 the tichorhine species, had left their remains in the caverns, 

 although Elephas antiquus, Falc, and Rhinoceros hemitozchus, 

 Bale, were subsequently discovered in them in abundance, 

 these two species, along with Hippopotamus major, consti- 

 tuting at the present time the criteria by which British 

 geologists test the more or less remote antiquity of the 

 works of man occurring in Drift deposits. 2 



In May 1860 I communicated to the Geological Society a 

 memoir ' On the Gower Caves,' which was read at the meet- 

 ings held on the 31st May and 13th June. 3 The caverns of 

 the Gower peninsula, Paviland being one of them, are very 

 numerous, and correspondingly rich in fossil remains ; while 

 in other respects they present favourable conditions for de- 

 termining the question, then unsettled, such as aje nowhere 

 else to be found in Great Britain. Their floor in many 

 cases is covered with marine deposits, containing shells, 



1 Quarterly Journal Geol. Society, 

 1850, vol. vii. p. 25. 



2 Vide Sir C. LyelFs 

 Man,' passim. 



■ Antiquity of 



See antea, p. 498. — [Ed.] 



