80 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



stance of the interior of the cranium of another animal, together with remains, 

 apparently belonging to the bear, wolf, or large dog, and the horse, with various 

 other fractured bones cemented into a breccia-like mass by a mixture of clay 

 and stalactite. These appearances coincide with what might have been ex- 

 pected to have occurred in the case of bones that had accidentally fallen into a 

 fissure, and it is not unlikely that they may have been rolled into it through a 

 small deep hole communicating with the large cavern, but not sufficiently 

 capacious to allow of entrance for the recovery of the carcass. The brecciated 

 bones in the clayey stalactite might have been also derived from the larger 

 cave by the constant falling into it of fragments of bone rejected by the cami- 

 vora, and which, as might be expected from lying for some time in their den, 

 would be well mixed with the clay that formed its bottom. 



A few of the bones were traversed in aU directions by fissures filled with 

 clayey stalagmite, a mass composed of broken plates of a tooth of the mammoth 

 being in this condition — these facts possibly indicating displacement of the walls 

 of the cave after the introduction of the bones, such dislocation affording the 

 opening, by means of which the superficial stalagmite was introduced. 



In concluding this part of my description of the caverns and their inhabitants, 

 I will enumerate the genera of animals to which the specimens (nearly aU of 

 which are in my own possession) belong. 



(To be continued.) 



PROCEEDINGS OE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 



Geological Society op London.— November 30, 1859.— Professor John 

 Pliillips, President, in the Chair. 



The foHowmg communications were read : — 



1, " On some Bronze ReHcs from an Auriferous Sand in Siberia." By T. W. 

 Atkinson, Esq., P.G.S. 



During the author's stay at the gold-mine on the River Shargan (Lat. 59 

 deg. 30 min. N., and Long. 96 deg. 10 min. E.) m August, 1851, some frag- 

 ments of worked bronze were dug up by the workmen, at a depth of fourteen 

 feet eight inches below the surface, from a bed of sand in which gold-nuggets 

 occur. This sand rests on the rock, and is covered by beds of gravel and sand, 

 overlain by two feet of vegetable soil. The fragments appear to have belonged 

 either to a bracelet or to some horse-trappings. 



2. "On the Yolcanic Country of Auckland, New Zealand." By Charles 

 Heaph;^, Esq. Communicated by the President. 



The isthmus-like district of Auckland and its neighbourhood, described by 

 Mr. Heaphy as a basin of Tertiary deposits, is bordered by clay-slate, igneous 

 rocks, and at one spot on the south by cretaceous strata ; and" it is dotted by 

 upwards of sixty extinct volcanos, often closely situated, and showing in 

 nearly every instance a well-defined point of eruption, generally a cup-like 

 crater, on a hill about_ three hundred feet high. Interesting instances of suc- 

 cessive volcanic eruption are numerous all over this district, sixtv miles round 

 Auckland ; and there seems to have been four distinct epochs of eruption, thus 

 classified by Mr. Ilcaphy :— 1. The first was that wliich raised the trachytic 



