118 PROP. T. m'kexnt hughes 



for discussion. He gave also a list of the shells found in the drift 

 outside the cave. 



In October 1887, the President of the Liverpool Geological Society, 

 Mr. G. H. Morton, in his presidential address*, referred to the work 

 which had been carried on in the Ffj^nnon Beuno Cave, during the 

 greater part of which he had been present, and gave it as his opinion 

 that " the bone-earth represents the preglacial period, and the bed 

 of stalagmite the cold period, when North Wales was glaciated and 

 uninhabited .... when the land subsided .... the force of the waves 

 .... broke up the stalagmite floor .... disturbed the bone-earth, and 

 drove the bones and teeth before it, so that these were not onlj^ 

 found in the bone-earth, but forced into hollows and cavities at the 

 sides, and even outside the mouth of the cave." 



Mr. Worthington Smith t, in a short note published in ' Nature ' in 

 November last, expressed his doubt as to the glacial age of the deposits 

 outside the Cae Gwyn Cave, and said that from an examination of 

 the flake itself he would be inclined to refer it to the very latest of 

 palaeolithic times, and thought it might even pass for neolithic. 



Mr. Morton J, in the following number, questioned the value of 

 Mr. Worthington Smith's observations. 



I have received many letters on the subject, some of my friends 

 agreeing with me upon points which I consider most essential to my 

 interpretation, while they do not accept my conclusion as to the age 

 of the cave-deposits. 



Dr. John Evans and Gen. Pitt-Eivers saw the section in September, 

 when there was still a considerable part of the festooned margin of 

 the swallow-hole visible. None but the first excavators saw the 

 central plug. 



Mr. Tiddeman is " at one with me in considering the Cae Gwyn 

 drift as being late in time," but believes it to be " ma-ine glacial." 



Dr. Stolterforth and Mr. Shone cannot get over the impossibility 

 of accounting for the presence of material derived from the drift 

 throughout the bone-earth, except on the hypothesis that the drift 

 is older than the cave-deposits. 



Dr. Geikie says " the bone-earth projects beyond the present limits 

 of the cave, but it probably never did so originally ; hence I have 

 no doubt that the roof or wall of the cavern has given way ;" but he 

 believes that " this faU of the roof or wall of the cave took place 

 before the deposition of the glacial deposits." This view is obviously 

 inconsistent with the facts to which attention is called by Dr. 

 Stolterforth and Mr. Shone, namely, that the bone-earth and other 

 cave-deposits are fuU of material derived from the marine drift. 



The old excavation at the upper mouth of the Cae Gwyn Cave has 

 been reopened, and a clear section cut through the " Head" into the 

 undisturbed drift, in which, at a distance of some 8 feet from the 



* ' The Liverpool Courier,' Thursd. Oct. ] 3, 1887. 



t ';Tbe Ffynnon Beuno and Cae Gwj^n Caves," 'Nature,' Nov. 3, 1887, vol. 

 xxxvii. p. 7. 



} " The Ffynnon Beuno and Cae Gwyn Caves," ' Nature,' Nov. 10, 1887, vol. 

 xxxvii. p. 32. 



