ON THE CAE GWTN CAVE. 117 



fence to which I had referred " is merely material conveyed there 

 during the explorations." He objects to the same name being 

 applied to " the true glacial deposits " " at the entrance to Cae 

 Gwyn Cave " and to the drift about St. Asaph, which " is in the 

 main remanie.^' " The Cefn and Plas Heaton Caves " are, he goes 

 on to say, " so near to the rivers that " he does " not think the 

 evidence furnished by them can be quoted as of much value either 

 way." He combats the palaeontological evidence which I had 

 adduced from what I considered the late Pleistocene facies of the 

 mammalian remains, on the ground that " a large proportion of the 

 animals occur in the Norfolk Forest-bed." 



In December 1886, Dr. Hicks * also read a paper before the 

 Geologists' Association in which he questions the possibility of dis- 

 tinguishing the various drifts of the Yale of Clwyd, and quotes 

 Mr. Strahan in support of his view. He restates the case for the 

 preglacial age of the deposits in the Cae Gwyn Cave. 



In February 1887, I read before the Victoria Institute a paper in 

 which I described the mode of formation of caves and cave-deposits, 

 and referred to the Cae Gwyn Cave and the analogous case of the 

 Victoria Cave in Yorkshire, in both of which I believe that beds 

 which are the result of ordinary subaerial and subterranean agencies 

 have been attributed to direct glacial action. 



Mr. E. T. Newton t published a note on the Cae Gwyn mammals 

 in the ' Geological Magazine ' of February 1887, in which he pointed 

 out that aU the Ffynnon Beuno mammals were found in undoubted 

 Pleistocene. The Lion, Eeindeer, and Woolly Rhinoceros occurred 

 in the Ffynnon Beuno caves, but were not found in the Forest- 

 bed, while jR. etruscus, Trogontherium Cuvieri, Myogale moschata, 

 ElepJias meridionalis, Cervus SedgwicJcii, C. verticornis, C. polignacus^ 

 C. Savinii, characteristic Forest-bed mammals, were none of them 

 found in the Ffynnon Peuno caves J. 



In the following number Dr. Hicks § replied, endeavouring to 

 explain the discrepancy by reference to the general absence of 

 cave animals in ordinary sedimentary deposits and vice versa. He 

 urged that " if the Forest-bed is proved to be of preglacial age, be- 

 cause it is covered by glacial deposits, then certainly we can claim 

 the remains found in the Ffynnon Beuno cave to be of preglacial age, 

 since they also were completely covered over by undoubted glacial 

 deposits." 



At the Meeting of the British Association at Manchester ||, Sep- 

 tember 1887, Dr. Hicks presented the " Second Report on the Cae 

 Gwyn Cave," in which he described the progress of the further exca- 

 vation the results of which are now being laid before the Society 



* Proc. Geol. Absoc. Feb. 1887, vol. x. p. 14. 



t "The Ffynnon Beuno Cave," Geol. Mag. Feb. 1887, dec. 3, vol. iv. p. 94. 

 A review of the subject at this stage is given by Koken, Neues Jahrbuch, 1887, 

 Band xi. pp. 487-489. 



I See also Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xliii. p. 110. 



I Geol. Mag. March 1887, dec. 3, vol. iv. p. 105. 



II Brit. Assoc. Eep. Manchester, 1887 ; ' Nature,' vol. xxxvi. Sept. 29, 1887, 

 p. 516. 



