cae gwyn caye, north wales. 577 



Discussion. 



Dr. Evans, notwithstanding the fresh evidence now adduced, 

 could not adopt Dr. Hicks's views. If the bone-earth had been 

 formed before the submergence, the sea would have cleared out the 

 cave-deposits ; they could not have been formed during the sub- 

 mergence, and were therefore subsequent to it. Dr. Hicks's opinion 

 as to the original entrance appeared to have changed ; his own im- 

 pression was that a number of limestone-blocks occurred at the 

 north-west extremity, and that this was not the original entrance. 

 After the submergence the cave was occupied by animals, and the 

 laminated clay afterwards formed by percolating water, and a certain 

 amount of sand was also introduced by the gradual passage of water, 

 of the results of which he had seen traces at the north-west end. 



The archaeological evidence was against Dr. Hicks's views. The 

 narrow scraper was of a character not usually found in gravel-beds 

 of river-valleys, but was characteristic of the later caves of the 

 Pleistocene period. The other implement was like some from Kent's 

 Cavern. In the Clwyd Valley there are distinctly Post-glacial cave- 

 deposits with implements of an older type than those of Cae 

 Gwyn, and which were similar to such as occur in undoubted Post- 

 glacial deposits of the east of England. 



At Drucat, near Abbeville, Prof. Prestwich has described a pit, 

 90 feet deep, which had been formed in the chalk by chemical action 

 since the deposition of the gravel containing flint implements ; 

 and sufficient allowance had not been made for the dissolution of 

 the limestone at Cae Gwyn. 



Mr. Morton regarded the drifts as identical with those of the 

 neighbouring counties, the shells of which were mostly of living 

 species. He agreed with Dr. Hicks as to water-action having dis- 

 turbed the bone-earth and stalagmite, and saw no signs of the 

 looping of the drift or of a swallow-hole. The fauna was different 

 from the Post-glacial fauna of the vicinity. 



Mr. Clement Heid considered that Dr. Hicks tried to assign too 

 high an antiquity to the bone-earth. Interglacial deposits with 

 mammals occurred in the east of England, and with plants in Scot- 

 land, and he would suggest the correlation of the bone-earth with 

 these. The absence of a lower Boulder-clay in this district might 

 be accidental. 



Mr. Strahan believed that the drifts of the mouth of the cave 

 were part of the northern drift which he had mapped over a large 

 part of Denbighshire, Elintshire, and Cheshire, and that the bone- 

 earth lay beneath them. 



Dr. Hicks, in reply, stated that he had not, in this paper, sug- 

 gested that the bone-earth was actually Preglacial, but only below 

 the Glacial deposits of the area. That the bone-earth was older 

 than the Glacial deposits was now proved beyond the possibility of 

 doubt. He could not agree with Dr. Evans that the fauna associated 

 with the implements at Cae Gwyn was Post-glacial in England, and 

 considered the implements themselves of such a character as might 

 have been formed at any stage since man first began to fabricate 

 implements from fiint. 



2q2 



