10 
Mr. Thomas Pease, F.G.S., one of the vice-presidents, then read a 
paper by the Rev. Gilbert N. Smith, of Gumfreston, on " Recent Re- 
searches in a Bone-Cave near Tenby." This cave, called " The Hoils," 
or Haul's Mouth, was in an undereliff of the mount* u limestone, con- 
spicuously facing the sunrise, whence probably its name was derived. 
Having been long an object of curiosity, it had been much disturbed, and 
its contents were first reported on at the Oxford meeting of the British 
Association by the author. The floor was composed of stalagmitic breccia, 
three or four inches thick, which had long been broken up, except in 
patches in one or two corners, one of which was broken up for the first 
time in July last, when two femurs of a bear, still in position, and un- 
questionably of the oldest bones, were extracted. Among the disturbed 
earth and stones, half a lower human jaw was found, a good many chert 
and flint flakes, and, as if to set all speculation of relative age at rest, 
five unworn Irish harp halfpence of the reign of George III. In October 
last search was made for the rest of the human skeleton, the plan adopted 
being to shovel into the light at the entrance all the soil from the beginning 
of the passage, and in a recess the greater part of the vertebra, the blade 
bones, radius and ulna, and other remains of the same, or another, human 
skeleton were found. These, however, had not attained to that increase 
of weight and peculiar dense fossil character so well known in cave bones. 
In the disturbed soil in another part of the cave were found two molars of 
a bear, other carnivorous teeth, and a tusk, also the prong of a deer's 
antler. In all, 200 flint flakes, including some "scrapers," and two or 
three " coves" from which they appeared to have been removed, were 
found, and larger flaky amorphous pieces of the same greenish, spotted, 
cherty trap, of which the largest flakes w r ere composed. The cave itself 
had been thrown off and aside, apparently by the elevation of a ridge of 
the Old Red Sandstone, extending about ten miles between Tenby and 
Pembroke. A valley, with a rivulet at the bottom, extended at the base 
of the limestone cliff, and this valley was at the present day liable to be 
flooded at spring tides. The paper concluded with a few surmises, con- 
clusions, and suggestions offered by Mr. Smith. The limestone having 
been formed soft and horizontal on the sea bed, and then elevated, all the 
animals whose bones had been collected in the cave must have lived and 
multiplied before the sea washed into it again. Also, these remains in 
general were carried into the cave by the larger Carnivora, though possibly 
by man, the flint-flake-maker. With respect to the relative date of the 
deposits, no conclusion could be drawn, except that they continued from 
the time the cave bear, hippopotamus, &c, were indigenous until the 
present. As the tumuli on the ridge above the cave contained flint arrow- 
heads, probably the race of men who used the flints were not far to seek, 
and apropos of flint knives a reference was made to a passage in the book 
of Joshua, recording the burying of flint (sacrificial) knives in his tumulus. 
With regard to the thickness of stalagmite, the author referred to the 
