JU1.T 17, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



53 



obstacle whatever to England constructing and send- 

 ing to sea, not merely those great and swift, but deli- 

 cate and fragile, Atlantic hotels in which the British 

 navy was to embark and fight, for the want of some- 

 thing better, but also war-ships, — real war-ships, 

 capable of bearing the once proud flag of England 

 boldly into the waters of any enemy whatever. 



BONE-CAVES IN WALES. 



Fkom a careful study of the bone-caves in Wales, 

 Dr. Henry Hicks (Proc. geologists^ association, vol. 

 ix. No. 1) makes some very important conclusions in 

 regard to the contents of the caverns. The evidence 

 shows that the area of North Wales was subjected 

 to very great physical changes during pleistocene 

 times. In the earliest part of the period it was raised 

 to a considerably greater elevation than it is at present, 

 and depressed afterwards in interglacial times to a 

 depth of at least two thousand feet, so that it became 

 a mere cluster of islands. After that, the area grad- 

 ually rose again, with slight oscillations of level, until 

 it attained its present configuration. Deposits relat- 

 ing to all these changes are to be found either on the 

 Welsh hills or in the valleys, especially in those sur- 

 rounding the Vale of Clwyd. If an attempt is made 

 to correlate the deposits in the caverns with the 

 glacial drifts of the neighborhood, — the results of 

 the changes referred to, — one would be inclined to 

 look upon the lowest drift in the caverns, that con- 

 sisting mainly of local materials, as belonging to an 

 early part of the glacial period, i.e., before the great 

 submergence. Possibly this material was introduced 

 into the cavern when the river flowed in the valley 

 at a much higher level than at present, as it has much 

 the appearance of that usually brought down by river- 

 action. As time went on, and the valley became 

 deepened, so that the caverns were above the reach 

 of the floods, they probably became the abodes of 

 hyenas and other beasts of prey, or places where 

 animals retired to die. During the epoch of great 

 submergence, as soon as the caverns were on a level 

 with the sea, they were probably filled with sand, and 

 the animal remains became entombed in them. This 

 sand is now found in the cavities of the bones, and 

 occasionally cemented to them. In the period of 

 upheaval which followed, as soon as the water was 

 again on a level with the caverns, it washed out most 

 of the sand, and carried in with it, instead, the muddy 

 and other materials which had been deposited in the 

 neighborhood by floating ice. By this means there 

 was produced a general re-arrangement of the con- 

 tents of the caverns. It was as the waters receded 

 that the upper bowlder-clays were deposited both in 

 the valleys and caverns. The abundance of bones 

 in the caverns, and their very rare occurrence in the 

 bowlder-clays of the valleys, prove almost conclu- 

 sively that they must have been accumulated in the 

 caves, and not washed in from the bowlder deposits 

 near by. The proof furnished that the bones must 

 have been buried in a marine sand before they were 

 enclosed in the present cave-earth, is strong evidence 



that the animals occupied the cavern in very early 

 glacial times. Whether man also lived in the area 

 at so early a period, cannot at present be decided by 

 any evidence, as the flint implement found with the 

 bones in Cae Gwyn Cave might have been introduced 

 at a later period. It is, however, interesting to know 

 that it appeared to be associated with the reindeer 

 remains, and that the type is supposed to characterize 

 what is called in France the ' reindeer period.' 



AN EDIBLE CLAM INTRODUCED ON 

 THE ATLANTIC COAST. 



Aisr interesting shipment of shell-fish has just been 

 received at the Wood's HoU (Mass.) station of the 

 U. S. fish-commission. It consists of nearly eight 

 hundred living specimens of Tapes staminea from 

 the shores of Puget Sound, in Washington Territory, 

 where it is known as the 'little round clam.' It 

 is not unlike the quahaug (Venus mercenaria) in 

 general appearance, though differently ornamented, 

 and not growing so large, and, as in the latter species, 

 the valves fit closely together all around when the 

 shell is closed. This clam is one of the most highly 

 prized of the west-coast species, of which there are 

 several used as food. It is marketed in large quan- 

 tities in all of the principal towns, and would form a 

 valuable addition to the food-products of the Atlantic 

 coast, if it could be made to thrive here. 



The shipment was made in one of the fish-commis- 

 sion cars, in charge of Mr. George H. H. Moore, and 

 was obtained at Henderson's Bay, near Tacoma, 

 Washington Territory, where the clams live on sandy 

 and gravelly bottoms about the level of low tide. 

 Between four thousand and five thousand specimens 

 were secured, and first packed in wet sand, in the 

 large stationary tanks on both sides of the car, filling 

 a space about twenty-four feet long by two feet wide. 

 The sand was moistened twice a day with sea-water 

 at a temperature of about 56° F. During the first 

 four days not over fifty of the clams died; but at the 

 end of that time, as they were evidently not doing 

 well, they were taken from the sand, and kept for a 

 few hours in pure sea-water. 



Then they were transferred to a bed of sand in 

 which the shells were laid with the ventral margin 

 uppermost, and covered with rock-weed which was 

 kept constantly wet. During the next two days the 

 mortality was very great, and it was thought best to 

 try the salt water again. They were accordingly 

 placed in tin cans of sea-water, in w^hich they com- 

 pleted the rest of the journey, arriving at Wood's 

 Holl, Friday, June 26, about seven days from the 

 time of leaving Tacoma, where, however, they had 

 been kept in the tanks two or three days before start- 

 ing. On the last day of the trip, over seven hundred 

 were lost, and the exact number received at Wood's 

 Holl was seven hundred and sixty-eight. These were 

 transferred to a suitable sandy beach, into which 

 many began to burrow at once. It is impossible to 

 predict how many of those brought over will recover 



