NOTES AND QUERIES. 



55? 



at which latter place they occur in carboniferous limestone. It seems impos- 

 sible that the animals to which they belonged (the Elephas primigenius occurs 

 at Caldy) could have lived on such small islands. On the other hand, there is 

 evidence that the general contour of this country is only slightly altered since 

 the period in which they lived. There appears to be two probable solutions to 

 this difficulty. Either the islands were connected with the mainland by the 

 general surface being higher than at present, and the animals were enabled to 

 roam over what are now small isolated spots, or else the bones are those of 

 carcases floated by the sea, or drifted, along with other deposits, into the fis- 

 sures, at a time when the land was lower than at present. It is, no doubt, a 

 fact that the land was higher when the great mammals lived — witness the- 

 forests which harboured them, now stretching beneath our shallow seas ; — and, 

 on the other hand, it is unquestionable that it was also lower not long after 

 their extinction, if, indeed, their extinction was not due to that very cause, for 

 we find their boues buried in the drift of such a period of submergence. 



It seems to me that the latter has been the true cause of their deposit in 

 fissures, because many such bone-bearing fissures do not partake of the char- 

 acter of caverns. Those at Portland that I have seen are too narrow to have 

 served as dens. The bones in them are not gnawed as at Kirkdale and other 

 larger caverns. Nevertheless, bones of boar, ox, deer, horse, wolf, sheep, and 

 other numerous smaller animals, most of which do not frequent caverns, occur 

 at Portland.* But still there is a difficulty as to how the bones got into the 

 fissures at Portland, because they are not, and never were, open from above. 

 Is it possible that at the time of the sinking of the land, their ends were exposed 

 in the perpendicular limestone cliifs, now far raised above high water mark, 

 but then subject to the dashing of the waves ? Carcases floating on the water 

 would almost inevitably be many of them washed into such fissures, and carried 

 far beneath the undisturbed roofing of slate where they were found. It would 

 be weli worth while for those geologists who live upon the spot, to investigate 

 he possibility of this solution. — Yours, &c, Osmond Fisher, F.G.S. 



Devonian Age. — Descriptions of Plates V., VI., VII., VIIL, and 

 X. — The subjects of these plates which illustrate Mr. Pcngelly's article on 

 "The Devonian Age of the World," are as follows : — 



Plate V. Spharospongia tessetatus, showing internal structure from the 

 Limestone of Woolborou^h, near Newton Abbott, South Devon. 



Plate VI. Ichthyodorulite from the Chloritic Slate of Love, Cornwall. 



Plate VII. — Pig. 1. Trimerocephalus keois (perfect) from Volcanic Ash, at 

 Knowell, near Newton Bushell, South Devon. 



Pig. 2. Tail and Head, with Eyes of Bronteus JlabelUfer from the limestone 

 at Woolborough, near Newton Abbott, South Devon. This specimen is figured 

 in Decade X. of the Geological Survey. 



Plate VIII. Trimerocephalus lsevis, from Volcanic Ash, Knowle, Newton 

 Bushell, South Devon. This species is figured in Decade XIX. of the 

 Geological Survey. The figures represent the two halves of the same slab 

 showing in Pig 1 the body in relief with the impression of the head, in Pig. 2 

 the head in relief with the impression of the body. The purpose is to exhibit 

 the reversal of parts under which singular conditions these fossils are almost 

 invariably found. 



Plate X. (Frontispiece). — Fig. 1. Orthoceras, apparently not distorted with 

 siphunculus forming a discontinuous- line. From the limestone of Teignmouth. 



Fig. 2. Orthoceras, probably distorted, showing a twisted outline, oblique, 

 septa and siphuneulus forming forming a discontinuous line. From the lime- 

 stone, at Oddicombe, near Torquay. 



Damon, p. 130. 



