BEACHES, ETC., OF THE SOUTH OF EXGLAITD. 289 



extend to the westward of Swansea, through Gower to the Worm's 

 Head. 



In noticing the Gower Caves, our object will be to show the 

 relation between them and the Raised Reaches and Head. The 

 Caves themselves were admirably described by Dr. Falconer.^ 



Between the Mumbles and the Worm's Head, a distance of 

 15 miles, ten ossiferous Caves are known to exist, besides two 

 which have been destroyed by the encroachment of the sea. These 

 are situated in the face of precipitous or highly-sloping cliffs, and 

 many of them are accessible only at low tide. They are from 20 

 to 40 feet above sea-level, and are the result of fissures combined 

 with rain- and wave-action. In some of the Caves a bed of marine 

 sand, of which Bacon Hole affords a good example, underlies the 

 bone-bed. 



According to Mr. Benson, the deposits in that cavern consist 

 of :— 



feet 



Earth with recent remains of Deer, Fox, &c 1 



Stalagmite 1 -^ 



Limestone breccia with bones of Bear, Deer, &c 2 



Stalagmite (irregular) 0^ ? 



Eed Oave-earth breccia with bones of Mammoth, Rhino- 

 ceros, Hjffina, &c 2 



Blackish sand with Elephant bones 1 ^ 



An irregular seam of stalagmite 0^: ? 



Yellow sand with Littorina littorea and L. rudls in all 

 stages of growth, and a few individuals of Clausilia 



nigricans 0^? 



The floor is of solid limestone. 



The shelly sand is about 20 feet above the level of the present 

 beach. At the entrance to this Cave there is a massive fragment of 

 Raised Beach, composed of large well-rounded pebbles attached to 

 the rocks ; and Dr. Falconer states that the Cave opens below, but 

 a little more to the eastward of " an enormous accumulation of 

 cemented angular breccia." ^ 



In Minchin Hole Cave, a few hundred yards to the west of the 

 last, the Cave-deposits consist of a very similar series of beds, with 

 a thicker bed of shelly sand at the base, and at about the same 

 hieght above sea-level. Shells of Hdioo hispida were found in a 

 dark sand with the bones, lying above the marine bed. Near the 

 entrance, the ossiferous Cave-earth with angular fragments of 

 limestone seemed about 9 feet thick ; the layer of stalagmite above 

 this was covered by 12 feet of rubble limestone (Head ?). 



Traces of marine sands were likewise found by Col. Wood and 

 Dr. Falconer under the Cave-deposits, at Bosco's Den and Devil's 

 Hole Cave, but the sections are incomplete, and the heights above 



1 ' Palseontological Memoirs,' vol. ii. pp. 498-535. See also Buckland's 

 ' ReliquijB Diluvianae,' pp. 80-98 ; Benson's ' Account of Bacon Hole,' Report 

 for 1852 of the Swansea Lit. & Sc. Society ; Dr. W. Taylor, ' The Gower and 

 Doward Bone Caves,' Trans. Cardiff Nat. Hist. Soc. vol. viii. (1876) p. 79. 



^ ' PaliBont. Memoirs,' vol. ii. p. 502. 



