Vol. 60.] PALEOLITHIC FLOOR AT PRAII SAXDS. Ill 



absolutely the age of the land-surface. All that could be said was 

 that it was the oldest, of human times, yet known in Cornwall. 



Mr. Strahan considered that the paper was of wide interest. 

 The raised beach which is recognizable at intervals for many miles 

 along the coast of South Wales had been shown by Mr. Tiddeman 

 to be overlain by the Glacial deposits of the neighbourhood. That 

 it was of earlier date than those deposits admitted of no dispute, 

 but Mr. Tiddeman had further expressed an opinion that a part of 

 the raised-beach series was continued into the caves, and was there 

 associated with the cave bone-beds. He (the speaker), while 

 believing this to be highly probable, thought that it had not been 

 actually demonstrated. 



This Welsh beach corresponded, without much doubt, to that which 

 occurred at Weston-super-Mare and at intervals along the coast of 

 Devon and Cornwall. It seemed, therefore, to be highly probable 

 that, although no Glacial deposits had been recognized in Cornwall, 

 the band described by the Authors corresponded in position and 

 age to beds which in South Wales were overlain by such deposits, 

 and were probably associated with Pleistocene mammalia. 



Doubt had been thrown upon the implements. But it seemed to 

 him that the facts that stones of a special character had apparently 

 been assembled for the definite purpose of making hearths, and 

 that they were associated with charcoal, possessed the greatest 

 significance. It would be necessary to prove, however, that the 

 black fragments were really burnt wood, and not vegetable remains 

 carbonized through lying in a porous matrix. 



Mr. A. M. Bell congratulated the Authors on their having found 

 an inhabited surface of Quaternary time ; such were found more 

 commonly on the Continent than in Britain, as, for example, in 

 Moravia, on the central water-parting of Europe. The speaker had 

 once, at a depth of 32 feet in unaltered river-gravel, found carbonized 

 remains in Oxfordshire, but was unable to find implements along 

 with them. Of the quartz-implements shown, he considered that 

 some of them were probably used as tools, and resembled rude 

 implements of Quaternary time. 



Mr. W. Shoxe said that there could be little doubt that the raised 

 beaches of the South of England were post-Glacial, as compared 

 with the Glacial Drift north of the Thames. The late Sir Joseph 

 Prestwich had already pointed this out l : — 



' There is the absence also in the liaised Beaches of such northern shells as 

 Astarte borealis, Leda pernula , Fusus islandicus, Xatica granlandica, and others 

 common in the Glacial drifts. The Raised-Beach mollusca agree therefore 

 pretty closely with the molluscan fauna now living in the British seas, and 

 this accords with the stratigraphical evidence, which leads us to place the 

 Beaches with the latest of the River-valley Deposits.' 



The speaker's own observations confirmed Prestwich's conclusions. 



Mr. G. Clinch enquired whether the Authors could furnish such 

 particulars as to the number and position of the hearths as might 

 throw some light upon the approximate length of time during which 



1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xlviii (1892) pp. 301-302. 



