NOTES AND QUERIES. 
557 
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 sJlgldhf 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 liiglier when the great mammals lived — witness tlie 
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 alter 
their extinction, if, indeed, their extinction was ]iot due to that very cause, for 
we find their boaes 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 1 have seen are too narrow to have 
served as dens. The bones in them arc not gnawed as at Kirkdale and otlicr 
larger caverns. Nevertheless, bones of l)oar, ox, deer, horse, M'olf, sheep, and 
other numerous smaller animals, most of whicii 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 ex})osed 
in the perpendicular limestone cliffs, now far raised above liigh water mark, 
but then subject to the dashiug of tlie waves '1 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 geoh)gists who live upon the spot, to investigate 
he possibility of this solution. — Yours, &c., Osmond Eishek, E.G.S. 
Devonian Age. — Descriptions of Plates V., YL, YII., VIII., and 
X. — The subjects of these plates which illustrate ^Ir. Pengelly's article on 
" The Devonian Age of the World," are as follows : — 
Plate V. Sphterospongia tesnelatns, showing internal structure from the 
Limestone of Woolborough, near Newton Abbott, Soutli Devon. 
Plate VI. Ichthyodorulite from the Chloritic Slate of Love, Cornwall. 
Plate VII. — Eig. 1. Trimerocephaltis hccis (perfect) from A^olcanic Ash, at 
Knowell, near Newton Bushell, South Devon. 
Eig. 2. Tail and Head, with Eyes of Bronteus fluhcUifer from the limestone 
at Woolborough, near Newton Abbott, South Devon. Tliis specimen is figured 
in Decade X. of the Geolo";ical Surrey. 
Plate VIII. Triinerocephalus lavis, from Volcanic Asli, 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 Eig 1 the body in relief with the impression of the head, in Eig. 2 
the head in relief with the impression of the body. The purpose is to exhibit 
tlie reversal of parts under which singular conditions these fossils are almost 
invariably found. 
Plate A. (Erontispieee). — Eig. 1. Orthoeeras, apparently not distorted with 
siphunculus forming a discontinuous line. Erom the limestone of Teignniouth. 
Fig. 2. Orthoeeras, probably distorted, showing a twisted outline, oblique, 
septa and siphuneulus forming forming a discontinuous line. Erom the lime- 
stone, at Ocidicorabe, near Torquay. 
Damon, p. 130, 
