CRADLEY PTERASPIDES. — HUMAN REMATNS. 495 



CRADLEY PTERASPIDES. 



Dear Sir, — On the part of Mr. Roberts I must be thankful, I suppose, for the 

 concession extracted from Mr. E. R. Lankester, whose "every" has now diminished 

 into "matt," and whose "most," after another month's recollection, will probably 

 shrink into "a vanishing quantity." 



At the earliest opportunity I shall submit the fish in question to the examination 

 of Sir P. M. De Grey Egerton ; meanwhile let it pass as P. rostratus. This note 

 will therefore close the subject. With many thanks for the kindness and courtesy 

 of the Editor, ^ 



Yours, &c, 



Malleus. 



HUMAN REMAINS IN THE VALLEY OF THE TRENT. 



To the Editor of the Geologist. 



Sib, — It was my intention to abstain from offering any opinion upon these 

 "remains," until Dr. Bevor, of Newark, had recovered them and given me an 

 opportunity for their inspection ; but the letter of J. H. W. in your last number 

 induces me to offer a few remarks. 



The first account of these remains came from a mutual friend of myself and Mr. 

 F. Drake, residing in the Yale of Bel voir, and from some want of detail in the 

 communication, it was supposed they were found in the "Yale,' but on a visit 

 we found the true state of the matter, that they were found in an excavation made 

 for the foundation of a bridge built by the Great Northern Railway at Muskham, 

 a village about two miles from Newark. We visited the spot, and made notes from 

 Mr. Chowler's very clear and detailed account of the excavation, with which he was 

 familiar from its commencement to its termination, it being upon his farm. Most 

 unfortunatel} T , in geologizing recently at Aust Cliff, on the banks of the Severn, I 

 lost my pocket-book containing these notes, but the details are yet so fresh in my 

 mind that I can recal them without difficulty. 



The excavation, although surrounded on all sides by a very pure gravel of an 

 ochreous character, such as is common to the Trent valley, was not made in a 

 gravel, but in a succession of soft, unctuous, alluvial deposits, sometimes sandy and 

 pebbly, butall dark coloured, and so soft that a stick could be thrust into them with 

 ease ; the beds were so distinct as to give the appearance of being deposited at 

 different times ; at least, the impression produced was that the materials were not all 

 poured in together. It was at the bottom of these beds, and before penetrating 

 into the gravel beneath, that the remains were found : the conclusion I came to was, 

 that originally there had been a deep hollow or pit, either natural or artificial, which 

 had been filled up w T ith river-silt by a succession of overflows of the Trent ; such 

 depressions in the Trent valley are common enough. I saw one opened in con- 

 tinuing the Great Northern line to Nottingham ; it was filled with a soft, black, 

 tenacious, peaty mud. 



The character of the remains is somewhat against their being found in a " drift" 

 gravel ; elephant remains are common enough in the "drift" of the Soar valley,* 

 and they may easily have been brought into the Trent by floods washing them out 

 of the banks of the Soar, flowing as it does for many miles through beds of this 

 " drift gravel ;" and at the junction at Red Hill these would be poured into the 

 Trent stream, and mingling with modern remains, would be swept into these hollows 

 in the valley at the time of any great flood. This would account for the pottery, a 



* Geologist, vol. ii. p. 174. 



