164 Proceedinrjii of the Royal Irish Academy, 



of the caves at Gower/ which rest on a beach 10 to 30 feet above 

 the present beach, and are older than the Boulder-clay, bear witness 

 to a similar absence of post-Glacial submergence of any considerable 

 amount in south Wales. And in the same district, as regards post- 

 Glacial times, the series of alternating silts and peats at Barry Docks, 

 carefully placed on record by Strahan,'^ points to a steady dropping of 

 the land, amounting to 55 feet, during a period extending from some 

 time after the close of the Glacial epoch to apparently the present 

 day. But the dating of the uppermost peat-bed at Bany as ITeolithic, 

 on account of the occurrence therein of a fragment of a polished flint 

 celt, which, according to Professor Hnghes, " seems to have been used 

 subsequently as a strike-a-light," though accepted by Sir A. Geikie, 

 can hardly be considered satisfactory — though it is quite possible that 

 that bed is Neolithic. 



At Southampton the jN"eolithic or post-I^eolithic age of the sub- 

 mergence seems better established. "We have not seen the Paper of 

 T. W. Shore and J. W. Elwes,^ quoted by Sir A. Geikie,^ but it would 

 appear that a third bed of peat, descending to 43 feet below mean-tide 

 level, yielded, in addition to an abundant flora similar to the present, 

 and remains of Bed-deer, Boar, Hare, Beindeer, and Bos primige7iiiis, 

 some flint-flakes, a hammer-stone, and a bone needle. These records 

 are not inconsistent, the Cork beach proving Glacial elevation and 

 post-Glacial depression, the Barry and Southampton silts and peats, 

 lying at a lower level, representing the latter movement only. But, in 

 any case, the evidence at either Cork, Barry, or Southampton precludes 

 such a sequence of movement as took place in northern Ireland. 



In Devonshire, an identical succession of events was traced by 

 Ussher'^ a quarter of a century ago — namely, " intra-Glacial " beach- 

 formation, considerable elevation, growth of forests and formation of 

 peat, and gradual submergence bringing in present levels. Professor 

 BoydDawkins, after quoting from Godwin- Austen (Geological Report 



1 E. H. Tiddeman : "On the Age of the Raised Beach of Southern Britain, as 

 seen in Gower." Report of Brit. Assoc. for 1900, pp. 760-762. 



2 A. Strahan: "On submerged Land-surfaces at Barry, Glamorganshire." 

 Q. J. G. S. lii., pp. 474-489. 1896. A. Strahan and T. C. C an trill : ^'The 

 Country around Cardiff," pp. 82-94. 1902 (Mem. Geol. Surv.). 



3 Papers and Proc. Hampshire Field Club, no. iii., p. 43. 1889. 

 ^ ''Anniversary Address," 1904, torn. cit. 



5W. A. E. Ussher: "The Chronological Value of the Pleistocene Deposits of 

 Devon." Q. J. G. S., xxxiv., pp. 454-458. 1878. 



