Page:Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man.djvu/190

172 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.

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, the latter of whom has discovered and thoroughly investigated the contents of many which were previously unknown. Among their contents have been found the remains of almost every quadruped 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 hemitœchus 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 (Melee 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