558 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles, 



upper earth in this cave contained fragments of late pottery mixed 

 up (by rabbits) with bits of rude prehistoric pottery, a tooled piece 

 of stag's horn, an iron spike, two worked flints, a piece of jet, part 

 of a bone comb, and a bronze celt of peculiar form, many bones of 

 Bos longifrons and goat, broken to get out the marrow, and remains 

 of hogs ; charcoal and human teeth also attested the occupation of 

 the cave by man. There were also remains of fox, badger, cat, 

 water-rat, dog, red deer, duck, fowl, and hare. Lower down were 

 remains of Bos longifrons, hog, red deer, wolf, and horse ; and 

 lower still, next the rock, more human teeth, remains of animals, and 

 a good flint. The cave seemed to have been occupied from time to 

 time during a lengthened period, probably from the Neolithic age 

 into those of bronze and iron. A cave in Gelly or Hartle Dale, 

 contained, in blackish mould, bones (some broken) of goat, pig, fox, 

 and rabbit, and pieces of very rude prehistoric pottery. 



Of Pleistocene caves and fissures the author described several. 

 One in Hartle Dale furnished remains of rhinoceros, aurochs 

 {Bison prisms), and mammoth, lying in yellow earth. The bones 

 were probably carried in by water. A fissure near the village of 

 Waterhouses, in Staffordshire, is 6 feet wide, and filled with the 

 ordinary loam. Bones of mammoths and the skeleton of a young 

 bison have been obtained from it; and the author supposes the 

 animals to have fallen into the fissure while making for the river to 

 drink. The Windy-Knoll fissure is situated near Castleton, in a quarry 

 near the top of theWinnetts, and close to the most northern boundary 

 of the mountain-limestone of Derbyshire. The author described 

 particularly the situation of this fissure and drainage of the district 

 in which it is situated. The fissure itself is filled with the ordinary 

 loam, containing fragments of limestone, and enclosing an astonishing 

 quantity of bones of animals confusedly mixed together, those lowest 

 down near the rocks being coated with and sometimes united by 

 stalagmite. The author supposes that this was a swampy place 

 into which animals fell from time to time, and in rainy seasons their 

 remains might be washed into it from the neighbouring slopes. 



LXVI. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles, 



ON THE DENSITIES OE PURE PLATINUM AND IRIDIUM AND THEIR 

 ALLOYS. BY H. SAINTE-CLAIRE DEVILLE AND H. DEBRAY. 



HPIiE precise determination of the density of bodies is of high im- 

 -*- portance for science, because the various isomeric and allotropic 

 states of one and the same substance are each manifested by a par- 

 ticular value of the density. In the present case it is especially 

 so, on account of the diverse properties possessed by metals from 

 the platinum-ores according to their physical state and their mode 

 of preparation. 



1. Platinum. — It is very difficult, by known processes, to remove 

 from impure platinum the iridium and rhodium which it always 



