Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 33.djvu/716

612 thought it was founded on a complete misunderstanding of the nature of the beds, which were really remaniés.

Dr. said that the whole matter resolved itself into a very small point. With regard to the supposed human fibula from Victoria Cave, he stated that, his attention having been called to the bone by Prof. Busk, he had made a careful examination and comparison of it in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, and come to the conclusion that it might be the bone of almost any animal; all ideas of the habits of the cave-dwellers founded upon it were therefore mere fictions.

Prof. thought that the evidence went to prove the existence of these caves before the Glacial period. They must have been excavated by the action of water charged with carbonic acid; and glacial bones may easily have got into them. He was much gratified by Prof. Rütimeyer's confirmation of the occurrence in Switzerland of interglacial beds containing evidence of the existence of man; and if man went up to Glacial beds, he must have previously lived some- where outside them. He thought that the evidence for the existence of man in the Victoria Cave before the Glacial period was stronger than that against it.

Mr. remarked that the Victoria-Cave fibula was found just at the entrance to and not inside the cave; and as there was a doubt about its being human, it should be left out of consideration. The lamination of the clays that cover the bone might, he thought, have resulted from their being slowly dropped from above at a subsequent period.

Prof. said that geologists could not found any argument upon this bone. He differed from Prof. Dawkins with regard to the age of the deposits in the Victoria Cave, which he thought might be Preglacial, but agreed with him that in this country we have no evidence of the presence of man before the Glacial age. The Lower Thames gravels are of Postglacial age, as the Gryphæa incurva has been found in them, and this would tend to fix their date as subsequent to the Boulder-clay, from which that fossil is most likely derived.

The noticed the interesting association of the Woolly Rhinoceros, Mammoth, and Reindeer, and commented on the alleged difficulty of separating the Grizzly and Brown Bears by their comparative anatomy, which, dealing as it does here with the skeletons alone, and leaving out of consideration the habits of the animals and all zoological data, seems to show an identity of two animals which in nature are very distinct. He asked Prof. Boyd Dawkins whether the impression which prevailed in some quarters that there had been a want of care in the excavation of the Victoria Cave was well-founded.

Prof. said that, with respect to the Victoria Cave, he could not say whether it was preglacial or glacial, nor even define its relation to the Glacial period. The age of the clays was a matter of opinion. At present the Victoria Cave is being very carefully worked. In this country, he thought, we have no evidence of Preglacial man, unless the Lower Brick-earths be Preglacial.