PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 



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Stalagmite, regular, but usually less than a foot thick. At one spot it rose into 

 a boss two feet three inches high, which was found in a shattered condition, the 

 fragments being loose, but still in place ; thus indicating the operation of some 

 shock since the formation of the stalagmite, and even since the peat began to be 

 formed, as well as the absence of the drip in the cave since the shock took 

 place ; (3) sandy loam, one foot four inches, with fragments of rock and without 

 bones ; (4) sand, four feet six inches ; (5) a bed of loose stony breccia, four feet, 

 without bones ; (6) ochreous loam, or the usual cave earth, six to seven feet 

 thick, resting on the solid cemented breccia, which forms a floor or diaphragm 

 between the upper and lower chambers of the fissure. JJrsus spelmis, Canis 

 hcpus, C. milpes, Bos, Cerviis, and Arvicola occur in the loam, the latter in abun- 

 dance. The most remarkable circumstance about these remains was the great 

 excess or Deers' antlers above the others. Upwards of one thousand antlers, 

 mostly shed and of young animals belonging chiefiy to Cermis Guettardi, were 

 collected. The lower chamber has been washed out by the sea to a depth inwards 

 of thirty-one feet ; and at its extremity a compact mass of marine sand and 

 gravel, about nine feet thick. The solid breccia forming the roof of the lower, 

 and the base of the upper cave, increases in thickness from six feet at the outside 

 to a greater depth inwards. Its materials correspond with the bed of angular 

 debris observed by Mr. Prestwich on the raised beach of Mewslade Bay. 



"Bowen's Parlour," or "Devil's Hole," is also a cavernous fissure in the 

 limestone cliff, between Bosco's Den and Crow Hole. It has been washed out 

 by the sea ; the former about twenty feet high at the mouth, the latter four- 

 teen. Thin tabular aggregations of sand adJiere to the lower surface of the 

 partition, showing that it was deposited on a bed of sand. The same phenomena 

 are repeated in " Crow Hole" with modifications ; the cave deposits being 

 still in situ : here remains of TJrsus, Meles, Rhinoceros, and some other forms 

 have been found. 



" Haven's Cliff," presents a cavernous fissure broad and high externally, con- 

 tracted within. Here a thin crust of stalagmite formed a floor upon sand nine 

 feet thick, which filled the fissure close up to the roof, leaving only an empty 

 angular chamber about a foot high above the stalagmite. Upon the latter, 

 remains of Mustela foina, Canis vidpes, and some Pish-bones and Bird-bones were 

 found. In the sand large coprolites of Carnivores, some fine remains of Felis 

 spelcea, bones of Rhinoceros, and the vertebra of a Pish were discovered. Below 

 the sand, as usual in the Gower Caves, there was a sandy breccia cemented by 

 stalagmite, about a foot thick. Upon it was a large block of limestone, smoothed 

 and polished, probably by the rubbing against it of cave-animals, and patches of 

 polished surface were seen on the walls of the cave. Remains of Mephas, 

 Rhinoceros, Bos, and Cei^vus, were met with above the breccia. Below the 

 breccia was a bed of dark-grey gritty sand, indurated by calcareous infiltration, 

 and attaining a maximum thickness of about eight feet. In this sand, and close 

 upon the rock-floor, teeth of Hippotamus major, young and old, and remains of 

 Ursiis, Cervus, and Arvicola, were met with. There was evidence, on the cliff 

 beyond the aperture, of the cave and its contents having formerly been continued 

 further seawards. 



The author pointed out that in all these caves the bottom appears to have 

 been first filled with sea sand or shingle, with which were occasionally inter- 

 mixed the bones of pachyderms, ruminants, &c., then living on the emerged 

 land of Gower ; that, when this deposit was elevated above high water mark, 

 stalagmite and angular debris of limestone rock formed a floor, on which subse- 

 quently cave-earth or other common alluvial materials, with bones and antlers, 

 often in profusion, were accumulated through the fissure above, during a long 

 lapse of time after the rise had been accomplished. At last, by a converse 

 action, of comparatively modern date, the level of the caves was depressed. 



