272 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Feb. 4, 



and on the right its own normal antler, shows that the latter is but 

 a variety of the former, consequent upon the irregular position of the 

 brow-antler. The correspondence also of the antler-basements of a 

 skull belonging to the former with the bases of necrosed antlers of 

 C. BucklancU may indicate that this is a second variety of the same 

 species, consequent on varying age. Antlers also indicated the pre- 

 sence of Cervus elaphus. Some of the teeth also correspond with 

 those of C. elaphus ; but I cannot affirm without hesitation that they 

 undoubtedly belonged to that animal. 



4. Proboscidea. — The twenty-four molars and six tusks of Elephas 

 primigenius belonged in the main to young individuals. The longest 

 tusk was 2 feet 5 inches in length ; the oldest molar was composed 

 of seventeen plates, four of which were supported by the anterior 

 fang. 



IV. Results of the Excavations. 



1. The Ancient Physical Geography of the District. — The group of 

 animals just noticed throws great light upon the physical geography of 

 the district in the days of the Hyaena. In the absence of the Beaver 

 and the Otter, of the Water-rat and the Hippopotamus, we may see 

 that then, as now, there was no river in the immediate vicinity. 

 The great preponderance of the Horse and Rhinoceros is very remark- 

 able. The great number of the former, compared with the few in 

 the Kirkdale Hyaena-den, may perhaps show that they were more 

 numerous in the west than in the north of England*. Both indi- 

 cate the existence of an extensive plain in the neighbourhood ; while 

 the various species of Cervidce point to woodlands on the flanks of the 

 Mendips, and encroaching on the plain at their base. But this evi- 

 dence does not stand alone. The physical configuration of the west 

 coast of Somerset, the mammalian remains found at low water at 

 St. Audries, the jaws of Rhinoceros tichorhinus at Taunton, associated 

 with oak, ash, and alder, prove that a level district extended in those 

 days, with but little interruption, from the Mendips to the Devonian 

 range of the Quantocks, and advanced westwards into the British 

 Channel, and possibly into the Atlantic. The higher grounds of 

 South Wales, in the Mountain-limestone of which bone-caves are so 

 numerous, probably formed its northern boundary. 



The Mountain-limestone borders of this great plain would obviously 

 be most favourable for the habitation of the large numbers of Car- 

 nivores — the Hyaenas, the three, if not four, species of Bear, the two 

 species of Felis, the Poxes, and the Wolves. We should naturally 

 expect to find them here in greater variety and numbers than in 

 any less favourable place. 



Subsequently to this came a great depression of the district, followed 

 by a gradual upheaval, the evidences of which time does not permit 

 me to bring forward. In neither the marine deposits of the one, nor 

 the lacustrine deposits of the other, have I detected any of the fauna 

 of the bone-cave, with the exception of the Fox, the Irish Elk, and 

 the Bed Deer. Thus the palaeontology of the district shows that the 

 date of the cave was prior to a submergence of the immediate 



* See List of Remains from Kirkdale, ' Reliquire Diluvianse.' 



