ON THE CAE GWYN CAVE. 123 



with the shell-bed outside it — -one is terrestrial, the other is marine ; 

 there is no ground for the hypothesis that the sea re-sorted the ter- 

 restrial deposits. We have to inquire, therefore, whether the cave- 

 deposits are earlier or later than the marine deposits. If earlier, 

 then we must carry back the cave-animals through the time when 

 glacial conditions prevailed over all this area, and refer them to the 

 preglacial age. 



Eut I must say I cannot get over the stratigraphical difficulty 

 that material which was not transported into that area till after the 

 recession of the Snowdon and Arenig ice is found in the cave-earth, 

 nor the palaeontological difEculty that the group of mammals found 

 in the cave is of the newer postglacial type, and identical with that 

 found in other caves known to be postglacial and in postglacial 

 river-gravels, while there is an entire absence of distinctly preglacial 

 forms *. This argument was combated by Dr. Hicks f and Pro- 

 fessor Boyd Dawkins t, but their objections have recently been 

 effectually disposed of by Mr. E. T. Newton §. 



Another hypothesis is that the occupation of the cave should be 

 referred to an interglacial age ; but I know of no geological evidence 

 in North Wales of a mild interglacial age ; and if we can get over 

 the difficulties connected with this cave, without calling in theories 

 founded on a very forced correlation of geology with astronomy, it 

 will be better to do so. 



A third hypothesis, that these cave-animals lived between the 

 glaciers and the sea in the early age of the submergence, before the 

 sea had reached the Cae Gwyn Cave, may be true. But that would 

 not make them preglacial, glacial, or interglacial. It is probable 

 that the glacier-ice came down in tongues to the sea, leaving exten- 

 sive areas along the coast fit for man and the lower animals. It is 

 probable that man and the large mammals followed the receding ice 

 on one hand, and the sea-shore on the other. It is possible that 

 they may in some places have pushed on between the ice and the 

 sea on an area afterwards submerged ; but there is no proof of it, 

 and with so much evidence in the surrounding district that man 

 and the early associated group of animals came in after the flints 

 and granite and other material introduced during the submergence, 

 it does seem desirable to get much clearer evidence than any yet 

 obtained from the Cae Gwyn Cave, that being the only case, before 

 we admit that man was there before the submergence. A northern 

 mountain region which rose the highest and sank the lowest, where 

 the ice gathered soonest and lingered longest, is not the place where 

 we are likely to find the earliest traces of man. 



These two points, then, I consider perfectly well established : — 



1. That the drift on the flank of the hill near Cae Gwyn must be 

 referred to the same division of the St. Asaph beds ; and 



2. That it was deposited not only after the climax of the glacial 



* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xliii. p. 110. 



t Ibid. p. 117. 



t Ibid. p. 118. 



§ Geol. Mag. 1887, dec. 3, vol. iv. p. 94. 



