334 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
1 
an account from Mr. Starling Benson's excellent papei- in tlie Transactions of 
the Institution. Tiie floor of the cave will be seen to fall from the entrance 
towards tiie inner part, while the interior of the roof is pointed (tlie two sides 
meeting at an angle), and is covered by a layer of stalactite, and the floor is 
also overlaid witli stalagmite, \\hich was blasted through, and a cross trench 
opened down to the solid bmcstone. First, then, they arrived at a bed of 
alluvial earth, in which were recent shells (still to be found there) and bones of 
ox, red-deer, roe-buck, aiul fox, succeeded by a thickish layer of stalagmite. 
Then came a bed of liard breccia, with bear-, ox-, and deer-bones ; then more 
stalagmite, below which was more breccia, and a deposit of cave-earth, — tlie 
grand treasure-house of osseous remains. Then came bones of tlie gigantic 
manmioth, rhinoceros, hyfpna, wolf, bear, ox, and deer. The lower layer of the 
black sand seemed to be almost exclusively occupied by mammoth-bones, the only 
others being a tooth of badger, and one of a kind of pole-cat. The mammotii- 
remains are most wonderful, and almost worth a special journey to Swansea to 
see them. The tusk was two feet round, and five feet five inches long ; besides 
which, there were humeri, femora, tibia, ulna, radius, and several phalanges. 
Below this important bed was more stalagmite, \vith shelly sand, containing 
Claiisilia nigricans, Littoriiui Jit t oralis ; also bones of birds and of arvicola. Here 
was a grand storehouse of fossil remains, and a large field for speculation as to 
the conditions under which all these inliabitants lived. How the shells got 
there at the bottom of aU these layers, and at a heiglit of tlurty feet above the 
sea, is easily explained. When tliey lived, tlie coast had not been elevated ; 
consequently, the mouth of the cave was probably under water at liigh tide, 
allowing the shells to be dejiosited, and birds and water-rats to enter at 
low tide. 
With regard to the ClausiJia, however, which is a land shell, it was probably 
not deposited untU the floor of the caves began to be dry, and above water. 
This elevation, which is to be found in aU the caves of Gower, is quite borne 
out by tlie water-worn appearance of the rocks in Caswell Bay. Wlien the 
floor of the cave was dry, the mammoth took possession, and lived in it. It is 
not very likely that his liones were drifted in by the sea, for two reasons: \st, 
that they were in a state of good preservation, which would not have been the 
case if they had been well beaten about by the waves ; and, 2n(I!i/, they aU 
appeared to belong to the same individual, as if he had lived and died there. 
Then came animals of smaller kinds in greater profusion, succeeded at the top 
by red deer, &c., animals which have not been for such a great length of time 
extinct. There are no traces of man below the upper stalagmite ; but in the 
black mud above are pieces of English pottery — a fact of wliich I was unaware 
in one of my visits, but which I sincerely regretted afterwards ; for, seeing a 
rapacious cormorant fishing just below me, I flung at it a piece of pottery, 
wliich I took to be of more modern extraction ; on examuiing the bones at the 
Museum, I recognized tlie antiquarian remains that I had so ignorautly cast 
away. There is another cave in Gower, which we sliaU presently visit, in 
which human traces have been found* — to the best of my knowledge the only 
two in Great Britain in which such has occurred. A little to the west is the 
Mitchin Hole, a larger hole than the other, but possessing no remains ; so we 
wiU wander along the cliifs until we come to Pennard Castle. Pennard Castle 
is rather a mystery as to where it came from, and where all the rest of the 
place is gone to. It was very likely built at the same time as most of the 
other castles ; but tradition has been unusally busy, and has asserted that it 
was built in one niglit, and destroyed in the same space of time by sand blown 
over from Ireland." 
* Traces and relics of man arc reported in other instances in Britain. — Ed. Gr.oi.. 
