28 
the clay ; and that no distinction, founded on condition, distribution, 
or relative position, can he established, whereby the human can be 
separated from the other relics. 
Mr. M’Enery observed that the flint implements found in the lower 
deposit were rude, compared with those higher up. This is in accord¬ 
ance with what Mr. Worsaae and other antiquaries have remarked, 
that what has been called the stone 'period requires to be subdivided, 
and that there are marks of two stages of advancing civilization, 
discriminated by the different degrees of skill shewn in the manu¬ 
facture of the implements of flint. 
Mr. M’Enery’s researches give a truly formidable view of the 
strength and ferocity of the carnivorous animals to whom Kent’s 
Cavern served as a den or a sepulchre ; such as the Machairodus 
latidenSi the Ursus spelceus, and the Hyaena. Even the large pachy- 
dermata, as the ElepTias primigenius and Rhinoceros tichorhinus, whose 
bones were found here, must have been dangerous contemporaries to 
man, armed only with flint implements. Whether they were really 
contemporaries here is rendered doubtful by the conflicting accounts 
of Mr. M’Enery and Mr. Austen. Scientific enquirers, however, as 
Professors Owen and Phillips, have expressed themselves in favour of 
the opinion, that man may have been eontemporary with some of the 
now extinct species of Mammalia. This can indeed furnish us with 
no exact measurement of time, but it seems to carry the history of 
man further back into past ages, than our ordinary chronology allows. 
Geology has shewn, that the progressive changes which the globe has 
undergone, have been a continued preparation for his residence. He 
could not want the means of subsistence, where the ox and the deer 
could live, and their bones have been found in the Kent Cavern. It 
seems in accordance with the wisdom and benevolence of his Creator, 
that the scene thus prepared for him should not wait long for his 
introduction. 
May 7.— W. Reed, F. G. S., read some “ Remarks on the Fossil 
Fishes of Monte Bolca,” in connection with a specimen of Gasterone- 
mus rhombeus from that locality, lately presented to the Society by 
R. Denison, Esq. Monte Bolca is a hill near Verona, capped with 
basalt, and composed chiefly of clayey and calcareous strata, with beds 
of a cream-coloured flssile limestone, in which the remains of fishes, in a 
most beautiful state of preservation, are very abundant. They are all 
flattened, but some retain traces of colour, and the scales, fins, and 
