70 Geological Society : — 



not to confound (III. i.) the question of the age and origin of the 

 caves themselves with (III. ii.) that of the deposits in the caves. 

 He then described some of the more important caves of the district, 

 explaining the evidence upon which he founded the opinion that 

 the deposits in Pontnewydd Cave were Postglacial Palaeolithic. He 

 arrived at the same conclusion with regard to the deposits in the 

 Efynnon Beuno Caves. Combating the objections to this view which 

 had recently been urged, he pointed out that the drifts associated 

 with the deposits in those caves cannot have been formed before the 

 submergence described under II. (ii.), because they contained north- 

 country fragments and flints, and that, even if they were of the age 

 of the submergence, they would not be preglacial ; that they cannot 

 have been formed during the submergence, as the sea would have 

 washed away the bones &c. from the mouth of the cave, and its 

 contents must have shown some evidence of having been sorted by 

 the sea. He considered that the greater part of the material that 

 blocked the upper entrance of the upper cave belonged to the 

 surface-drifts described under II. (iii.), and were, as they stood, 

 almost all subaeriaL 



He further pointed out that, so far as palaeontologists had been 

 able to lay before them any chronological divisions founded on the 

 Mammalia, the fauna of the Efynnon Beuno Caves agreed with the 

 later rather than with the earlier Pleistocene groups. 



December 1. — Prof. J. "W. Judd, F.R.S., President, in the Chair. 

 The President announced that he had received from Prof. Ulrich, 

 of Dunedin, ~N. Z., the announcement of a very interesting discovery 

 which he had recently made. In the interior of the South Island 

 of New Zealand there exists a range of mountains, composed of 

 olivine-enstatite rocks, in places converted into serpentine. The 

 sand of the rivers flowing from these rocks contains metallic particles 

 which, on analysis, prove to be an alloy of nickel and iron in the 

 proportion of two atoms of the former metal to one of the latter. 

 Similar particles have also been detected in the serpentines. This 

 alloy, though new as a native terrestrial product, is identical with 

 the substance of the Octibeha meteorite, which has been called 

 octibehite. Prof. Ulrich has announced his intention of communi- 

 cating to the Society a paper dealing with the details of this inter- 

 esting discovery — which is certainly one of the most interesting 

 that has been made since the recognition of the terrestrial origin 

 of the Ovifak irons. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. "On a new Genus of Madreporaria — Gtyphastrcea, with Re- 

 marks on the Gtyphastrcea Forbesi, Edw. & H., sp., from the Ter- 

 tiaries of Maryland, U.S." By Prof. P. Martin Duncan, M.B., 

 F.R.S., F.G.S., &c. 



2. "On the Metamorphic Rocks of the Malvern Hills." Part I. 

 By Prank Rutley, Esq., E.G.S., Lecturer on Mineralogy in the 

 Royal School of Mines. 



Part I. is the result of conclusions arrived at in the field ; Part II. 

 will be devoted to a microscopic description of the rocks. 



