332 Geological Society : — 



near Bedford (Geol. Soc. Journ. No. 67, p. 366) Mr. Wyatt, Mr. Nail, 

 the Rev. Mr. Hillier, and Mr. Berrill have added seven or eight to the 

 list, from the gravel-pits at Cardington, Harrowden, Biddenham, and 

 Kempston. Mr. J. G. Jeffreys, F.G.S., having examined Mr. Wyatt's 

 further collections of Shells from the gravel-pits at Biddenham and 

 Harrowden, has determined seventeen other species besides those no- 

 ticedby Mr. Prestwich, and among these is Hydrobia marginata (from 

 the Biddenham pit), which has not been found alive in this country. 

 At Kempston, Mr. Wyatt has examined the sand beneath the gravel 

 (which is destitute of shells), and at 3 feet in the sand (19 feet from 

 the surface) he found Helix, Succinea, Bithynia, Pupa, Planorbis, &c. 

 with a flint implement. The upper gravel contained several flint flakes. 



3. "Ona Hysena-den at Wookey-Hole, near Wells, Somerset." 

 By W. Boyd Dawkins, Esq., F.G.S. 



In a ravine at the village of Wookey-Hole, on the southern flanks 

 of the Mendips, and two miles N.W. of Wells, the River Axe flow T s 

 out of the Wookey-Hole Cave by a canal cut in the rock. In cutting 

 this passage, ten years ago, a cave, filled with ossiferous loam, was 

 exposed and about 12 feet of its entrance cut away. In 1859 

 the author and Mr. Williamson began to explore it by digging away 

 the red earth with which the cave was filled, and continued their 

 operations in 1860 and 1861. They penetrated 34 feet into the 

 cave ; and here it bifurcates into two branches, one vertical (which 

 was examined as far as practicable), and one to the right (left for 

 further research). A lateral branch on the left, not far from the en- 

 trance, was also examined. The cave is hollowed out of the Dolo- 

 mitic Conglomerate, from which have been derived the angular and 

 water-worn stones scattered in the ossiferous cave-earth. Its great- 

 est height is 9 feet, and the width 36 feet ; it is contracted in the 

 middle, and narrow towards the bifurcation. Remains oiHycena spelaa 

 (abundant), Canis Vulpes, C. Lupus, Ursus spelceus, Equus (abun- 

 dant), Rhinoceros tichorhinus, Rh. leptorhinus (?), Bos primigenius, 

 Megaceros Hibernicus, C. Bucklandi, C. Guettardi, C. Tarandus (?), 

 C. Dama (?), and Elephas primigenius were met with ; remains of 

 Felis spelcea were found when the cave was first discovered. The 

 following evidences of man were found by Messrs. Dawkins and Wil- 

 liamson in the red earth of the cave — chipped flints, flint- splinters, 

 a spear-head of flint, chipped and shaped pieces of chert, and two bone 

 ^arrow-heads ; and the author argues that the conditions of the cave 

 and its infilling prove that man was contemporaneous here with the 

 extinct animals in the prae-glacial period (of Phillips), and that the 

 cave was filled with its present contents slowly by the ordinary ope- 

 rations of nature, not by any violent cataclysm. 



February 5, 1862.— Sir R. I. Murchison, V.P.G.S., in the Chair. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. "On some Volcanic Phenomena lately observed at Torre del 

 Greco and Resina." By Signor Luigi Palmieri, Director of the Royal 

 Observatory on Vesuvius. In letters addressed to H.M. Consul at 

 Naples, and. dated December 17th, 1861 and January 3rd, 1862. 



The evolution of gases, — the outburst of springs of acidulous and 



