1872.] DAAVKIKS — CLASSIFICATION OP TLEISTOCEiSrE STRATA. 415 



glacial or Pliocene on the one hand, and with the Late Pleistocene 

 on the other, it will be seen that they are linked to the former by 

 the Khinoceros megarliinus, and to the latter by the Ovihos mos~ 

 chatus. The absence of the Eeindeer, which was so numerons in 

 the vaUey of the lower Thames, and the abundant remains of the 

 Stag, seem to me to point backwards rather than forwards in time, 

 and to imply that the Lower Brick-earths are not of Late Pleistocene 

 age, just as the absence of the characteristic Early Pleistocene spe- 

 cies shows that they are not of that age. The evidence seems to me 

 sufficient to establish a stage intermediate between the two. Never- 

 theless the evidence is sufficiently conflicting to cause Dr. Falconer 

 to come to the conclusion that these strata are of Pliocene date, 

 and Mr. Prestwich to believe that they belong to a late stage in the 

 Pleistocene*. 



The same group of animals, with the exception of the Megarhine 

 and Tichorhine Ehinoceros and the Musk-sheep, is furnished by the 

 fiuviatile deposit at Clacton, in Essex, in association with the pecu- 

 liar form of Fallow Deer which I have described under the name of 

 Cervus Broivni. 



One of the most remarkable facts brought to light by Mr. McEnery 

 is the former presence of the sabre-toothed Eelis {Machcerodus 

 latidens) in the cave of Kent's Hole. Its characteristic canines 

 are found associated with thousands of the teeth of Horse and 

 Hyaena. Kent's Hole is the only place where this fell carnivore 

 has been found along with the remains of Mammoth, Reindeer, and 

 other Pleistocene mammals. It belongs to an archaic type, which 

 sprang into existence during the Miocene times in France, Ger- 

 many, and Switzerland, and jDreyed upon the Hipparion and Ante- 

 lope in the plains of Marathon and on the Indian flanks of the 

 Himalayas — to a type that coexisted with ElejjTias meridionalis and 

 the Mastodon during Pliocene times in France, Germany, Britain, 

 and Italy, and in South America preyed uj^on the gigantic Sloths 

 and Horses whose remains are found in the Brazilian caves. 



The large masses of breccia which occur in the cave-earth of Kent's 

 Hole are remarkable for their hard crystalline structure, and prove 

 that there was a stalagmite floor in the cave before the introduction, 

 of the earth, and long before the formation of the present stalagmite 

 pavement. In a portion of the cave called the " gallery " there is evi- 

 dence of the undisturbed part of this ancient stalagmite in a " ceiling, 

 or uppermost floor," that extends from wall to wall, " without further 

 support than that furnished b}^ its own cohesion. Above it there is 

 in the limestone-rock a considerable alcove. This branch of the 

 cavern, therefore, is divided into three stories, or flats, — that below 

 the floor occupied with cave-earth, that between the floor and ceiling 

 entirely unoccupied, and that above the ceiling also without a de- 

 posit of any kind." From its being stained with cave-earth, as well 

 as from its position, the ceiling, at the time of its deposition, must 

 have been supported by cave-earth. It would, indeed, be as impos- 

 sible for a solid horizontal sheet of stalagmite to be formed in mid 

 * Palconer, Palasont. Mem. j Prestwjcb, Geol. Mag. 



