168 FLINT IMPLEMENTS IN SUFFOLK. CHAP. IX. in situ in regular strata and preserved by Sir Edward Kerrison, no bones of extinct mammalia seem as yet to have been actually seen in the same stratum with one of the tools. By reference to the annexed section, the geologist will see that the basin-shaped hollow a, b, c, has been filled up gradually with the fresh-water strata 3, 4, 5, after the same cavity a, b, c, had been previously excavated out of the more ancient boulder clay, No. 6. The relative position of these formations will be better understood when I have described in the Twelfth Section showing the position of the flint weapons at Hoxne, near Diss, Suffolk. See Prestwich, Philosophical Transactions, Pl. 11. 1860. 1 Gravel of Gold Brook, a tributary of the Waveny. 2 Higher-level gravel overlying the freshwater deposit. 3 and 4. Sand and gravel, with freshwater shells, and flint implements, and bones of mammalia. 5 Peaty and clayey beds, with same fossils. 6 Boulder clay or glacial drift. 7 Sand and gravel below boulder clay. 8 Chalk with flints. Chapter the structure of Norfolk and Suffolk as laid open in the sea-cliffs at Mundesley, about thirty miles distant from Hoxne, in a North North-east direction. I examined the deposits at Hoxne in 1860, when I had the advantage of being accompanied by the Rev. J. Gunn, and the Rev. S. W. King. In the loamy beds 3 and 4, fig. 24, we observed the common river shell Valvata piscinalis in great numbers. With it, but much more rare, were Limnea palustris, Planorbis albus, P. spirorbis, Succinea putris, Bithynia tentaculata, Cyclas cornea; and Mr. Prestwich mentions Cyclas amnica and fragments of a Unio, besides CHAP. IX. FLINT IMPLEMENTS IN SUFFOLK. 169 several land shells. In the black peaty mass No. 5, fragments of wood of the oak, yew, and fir have been recognised. The flint weapons which I have seen from Hoxne are so much more perfect, and have their cutting edge so much sharper than those from the Valley of the Somme, that they seem neither to have been used by Man, nor to have been rolled in the bed of a river. The opinion of Mr. Frere, therefore, that there may have been a manufactory of weapons on the spot, appears probable. Flint Implements at Icklingham in Suffolk. In another part of Suffolk, at Icklingham, in the Valley of the Lark, below Bury St. Edmund's, there is a bed of gravel, in which two flints of a lance-head form have been found at the depth of four feet from the surface. I have visited the spot, which has been correctly described by Mr. Prestwich.* The section of the Bedford tool-bearing alluvium, given at p. 155, may serve to illustrate that of Icklingham, if we substitute chalk for oolite, and the river Lark for the Ouse. In both cases, the present bed of the river is about thirty feet below the level of the old gravel, and the chalk hill, which bounds the Valley of the Lark on the right side, is capped like the oolite of Biddenham by boulder clay, which rises to the height of one hundred feet above the Lark. About twelve years ago, a large erratic block, above four feet in diameter, was dug out of the boulder clay at Icklingham, which I found to consist of a hard siliceous schist, apparently a Silurian rock, which must have come from a remote region. The tool-bearing gravel here, as in the case to which it has been compared near Bedford, is proved to be newer than the glacial drift, by containing pebbles of basalt and other rocks derived from that formation. * Quarterly Geological Journal, 1861, vol. xvii. p. 364. 170 FOSSIL WORKS OF ART IN SOMERSETSHIRE. CHAP. X. CHAPTER X. CAVERN DEPOSITS, AND PLACE OF SEPULTURE OF THE POSTPLIOCENE PERIOD. FLINT IMPLEMENTS IN CAVE CONTAINING HYENA AND OTHER EXTINCT Works of Art associated with extinct Mammalia in a HE only British cave from which implements resembling THE those of Amiens have been obtained, since the attention of geologists has been awakened to the importance of minutely observing the position of such relics relatively to the associated fossil mammalia, is that recently opened near Wells in Somersetshire. It occurs near the cave of Wokey Hole, from the mouth of which the river Axe issues on the southern flanks of the Mendips. No one had suspected that on the left side of the ravine, through which the river flows after escaping from its subterranean channel, there were other caves and fissures concealed beneath the green sward of the steep sloping bank. About ten years ago, a canal was made, several hundred yards in length, for the purpose of leading the waters of the Axe to a paper-mill, now occupying the middle of the ravine. In carrying out this work, about twelve feet of the left bank was cut away, and a cavernous CHAP. X. FOSSIL WORKS OF ART IN SOMERSETSHIRE. 171 fissure, choked up to the roof with ossiferous loam, was then, for the first time, exposed to view. This great cavity, originally nine feet high and thirty-six wide, traversed the dolomitic conglomerate; and fragments of that rock, some angular and others water-worn, were scattered through the red mud of the cave, in which fossil remains were abundant. For an account of them and the position they occupied we are indebted to Mr. Dawkins, F.G.S., who, in company with Mr. Williamson, explored the cavern in 1859, and obtained from it the bones of the Hyana spelaa in such numbers as to lead him to conclude that the cavern had for a long time been a hyæna's den. Among the accompanying animals found fossil in the same bone-earth, were observed Elephas primigenius, Rhinoceros tichorhinus, Ursus spelaus, Bos primigenius, Megaceros hibernicus, Cervus Tarandus (and other species of Cervus), Ursus spelaus, Felis spelaa, Canis Lupus, Canis Vulpes, and teeth and bones of the genus Equus in great numbers. Intermixed with the above fossil bones were some arrowheads, made of bone, and many chipped flints, and chipped pieces of chert, a white or bleached flint weapon of the spear-head Amiens type, which was taken out of the undisturbed matrix by Mr. Williamson himself, together with a hyæna's tooth, showing that Man had either been contemporaneous with or had preceded the extinct fauna. After penetrating thirty-four feet from the entrance, Mr. Dawkins found the cave bifurcating into two branches, one of which was vertical. By this rent, perhaps, some part of the contents of the cave may have been introduced.* When I examined the spot in 1860, after I had been shown some remains of the hyæna collected there, I felt convinced that a complete revolution must have taken place in the * W. B. Dawkins, F.G.S., Geological Society's Proceedings, January 1862. 172 OSSIFEROUS CAVES IN SOUTH WALES. CHAP. X. topography of the district since the time of the extinct quadrupeds. I was not aware at the time that flint tools had been met with in the same bone-deposit. Caves of Gower in Glamorganshire, South Wales. The ossiferous caves of the peninsula of Gower in Glamorganshire have been diligently explored of late years by Dr. Falconer and Lieutenant-Colonel E. R. Wood, who have thoroughly investigated the contents of many which were previously unknown. Among these Dr. Falconer's skilled eye has recognised the remains of almost every quadruped which he had elsewhere found fossil in British caves: in some places the Elephas primigenius, accompanied by its usual companion the Rhinoceros tichorhinus, in others Elephas antiquus associated with Rhinoceros hemitachus Falconer; the extinct animals being often embedded, as in the Belgian caves, in the same matrix with species now living in Europe, such as the common badger (Meles Taxus), the common wolf, and the fox. In a cavernous fissure called the Raven's cliff, teeth of several individuals of Hippopotamus major, both young and old, were found; and this in a district where there is now scarce a rill of running water, much less a river in which such quadrupeds could swim. In one of the caves, called Spritsail Tor, both of the elephants above named were observed, with a great many other quadrupeds of recent and extinct species. From one fissure, called Bosco's Den, no less than one thousand antlers of the rein-deer, chiefly of the variety called Cervus Guettardi, were extracted by the persevering exertions of Colonel Wood, who estimated that several hundred more still remained in the bone-earth of the same rent. They were mostly shed horns, and of young animals; and |