114 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



the escarpment, had found a passage to the west, through what is now an 

 upland valley. 



Bone-Cave at Cefn, Flintshire. — Cefn Cave was first explored by 

 the Eev. Edward Stanley, late Bishop of Norwich, in 1832. It lies in the 

 carboniferous limestone of Denbighshire, near St. Asaph, in the Vale of 

 Cyffredan, on the west side of the Vale of Ebwy. It is on the side and 

 near the top of a steep escarpment overlooking the river. Most of the 

 bones were probably dragged in by beasts of prey, of which it served as 

 the den ; others may have dropped in through cracks in the roof. The 

 following species, named by Dr. Falconer, have been observed ; many of 

 these were in the possession of Lieut. -Colonel Watkins Wynne, on whose 

 property the cave lies: — Elephas antiquus, Rhinoceros Jiemitcechus, Rhi- 

 noceros tichorinus, Hippopotamus major, Bos, Cervus, etc. No human 

 remains have been found in it, but human bones have been found at a 

 lower level in the base of the same escarpment. In the Vale of Clwyd 

 there is much stratified drift, with ice-scratched boulders and sea-shells ; 

 and Professor Kamsay says the cave has clearly been submerged during 

 the glacial or drift period, as he and Dr. Falconer have found fragments 

 of cockles and other marine shells hi the clay, and amongst the gravel and 

 stones with which it is filled. 



Peat Sandstone.— Dr. Mega states, in ' Hameberg's Journal,' that 

 there occurs in the heaths of Hannover (America) a kind of moss-bed pan, 

 which consists of sand cemented by peat : though, on account of its colour, 

 it is generally thought to be either bog-iron or iron-sandstone. It is 

 formed by the evaporation of bog-water from a nearly pure quartz sand. 

 The grains of sand first acquire a yellow, then a brown, and finally a dark 

 brown or black colour. When the peat solution evaporates, the peat is 

 left in a form no longer soluble in water. It gradually fills up the inter- 

 stices of the sand, and makes an impenetrable mass possessing a good de- 

 gree of hardness and tenacity. When this peat sandstone is placed in 

 ammonia a dark solution of humie acid is obtained, and nothing but white 

 sand remains. 



Copper Age of xImekica.— M. Morlot has drawn attention to this topic. 

 He says : — Some more light seems to be thrown on the date of the 

 " Copper Age "by the fact recorded in Schoolcraft's 'Indian Tribes '{vol. i. 

 p. 133). Twelve miles from Dimdas, Cauada West, there were discovered, 

 about 1837, extensive ossuaries, and among the bones were found amulets of 

 the red pipestone of Coteau des Prairies (Minnesota), copper bracelets like 

 those of the old graves in the West, a Pyrula spirata and a P. perversa, 

 both from the Gulf of Mexico, four antique pipes used without stems, and 

 corresponding with an antique pipe from an ancient grave at Thunder Bay, 

 Michigan, a worked gorget of sea-shell, with red nacre- and shell-beads of 

 the same kind as those said to have been found in the gigantic mound of 

 Grave Creek, Virginia. All this goes to characterize the ossuaries of 

 Beverley as belonging to the time of the mouud-builders — that is. of the 

 "Copper Age." But these ossuaries have also yielded some beads aud 

 baldrics of glass and coloured enamel (figured by Schoolcraft, pi. xxiv. and 

 xxv.). This find is not single in its kind, for according to Schoolcraft 

 (' Lead Mines of Missouri,' 2nd part, 1819), beads agreeing completely 

 with those of Beverley were found in 1817 in antique Indian graves, at 

 Hamburg, Erie county, New York. Schoolcraft distinctly points out the 

 beads as of European origin. This M. Morlot thinks unquestionable, as 

 the native industry of America never produced glass or enamel ; and he 

 further states that similar beads have been obtained in Sweden, and Den- 

 mark, and Germany. These beads are not, according to Minutoli's paper 



