446 PROCEEDIN-GS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [June 19, 



sidered, therefore, that it was unsafe to generalize from any one 

 series of remains, as, unless the whole fauna was taken into con- 

 sideration, it was probable that erroneous conclusions would be 

 arrived at. 



Mr, Ploweb considered that both on geological and palseonto- 

 logical grounds the ossiferous caves and the river-deposits were 

 separable, and ought to be sej)arated, and that no satisfactory results 

 would be obtained by placing in the same category the Mammalian 

 remains of a hundred and fifty rivers and a great number of caves of 

 widely different ages and characters. 



Mr. Evans observed that in generalizations of this kind not only 

 the whole of the palseontological evidence should be taken into 

 account, but the stratigraphical also. "With regard to the author's 

 middle division of the mammalia, he thought that eventually this 

 would have to be modified. If it were to be maintained there would 

 be a great difficulty in accounting for the presence of the high beds 

 at Shacklewell and Highbury, as these, though in a valley con- 

 fessedly excavated by the river, and regarded as of more recent age 

 than the lower beds, would yet be at a far higher level. Though 

 accepting the probable existence of man in preglacial times, he 

 pointed out that up to the present time the beds in Britain in which 

 his works had been found were all postglacial. 



Mr. Boyd Dawkins, in reply, stated that, in forming his con- 

 clusions, he had not left out of view the evidence afforded by the 

 classes of remains other than those of mammalia ; but they threw no 

 light on the classification. With regard to the middle of his divisions 

 of the Pleistocene mammalia, he relied to a great extent on the pre- 

 sence of Mhinoceros megarhinus, and of a large number of Stags, to 

 say nothing of the absence of the Keindeer. He did not attach so much 

 importance to the question of the level, as in some cases (for example 

 the Porest-bed of Norfolk) it was not a test of age. He gave his 

 reasons for not regarding the Mammoth as an exclusively arctic 

 animal. His remarks with regard to M. Lartet's classification 

 referred rather to the expanded views of his followers than to those 

 of M. Lartet himself. He acknowledged his obligations to MM. 

 Gaudry, Fraas, Riitimeyer, and Nilsson for various facts which they 

 had been kind enough to communicate to him. 



June 19, 1872. 



Eichard Anderson, Esq., F.C.S., Uddingstone, near Glasgow ; 

 Lieut. Henry Allen Gun, E..E., South Kensington ; Sir Victor 

 Brooke, Bart., Colebrooke, Lisnaskea, Fermanagh, Ireland ; Edmund 

 James Smith, Esq., 16 Whitehall Place, S.W., and Peter Pickup, 

 Esq., Townley, Burnley, Lancashire, were elected Fellows of the 

 Society. 



The following communications were read : — 



