Since the publication of my paper “On the Discovery of Human and Animal Bones in Heathery Burn Cave, near Stanhope,” in the ‘Geologist’ for January last, there have been further very important discoveries made in that cave.

In carrying on the quarrying operations from the point where they were suspended (see F—fig. 1) when the first discovered relics were sent to London the workmen found numerous fragments of bones, also bone pins and knives, fragments of very rude pottery, portion of an armlet, boar-tusks, bronze spear-head, pins, celts, and armlet, two coins, some marine shells, cockle, limpet, and mussels, and large quantities of charcoal, etc., all deposited under an incrustation of stalagmite, varying from 2 to 4, or at some places to 8 inches in thickness, with the exception of one or two manufactured articles, which were found in the sand not covered by stalagmite. The whole of the cave-deposits, with this trifling exception, were covered by a thick sheet of stalagmite, varying from a very dense, compact structure, to a highly crystalline, or to a more or less porous substance: some portions easily fractured by the stroke of a hammer, others yielding only to most energetic blows.

The bronze armlet and the two coins were found in sand uncovered by stalagmite, but as they were deposited in what had, not long ago, been the watercourse, the stalagmite had either been denuded, or had been prevented from forming, at that particular place, by the action of the stream; the coins were under very little cover, and might have been imbedded very recently.

I gave, in a paper in the February number of the ‘Geologist,’ a general view of the facts in the geology of this country which have led me to believe that the metamorphosis of rocks is due to a slow and gradual change in their constituents ; of which change water is one of the chief agents, and the internal heat of the earth not a necessary adjunct.

I now propose to describe more particularly those relations of the quartzite with the palæozoic rocks, a careful examination of which has rendered necessary an entire reconstruction of the geological map of the country. That map, published in the Transactions of the Geological Society, was the work of an able man, and the evidence on which the Devonian (Upper Silurian, Bain) was separated from the Clay-slate formation was (so far as I have been able to verify it), I believe, such, that he would not have been justified in coming to another conclusion by any generally admitted principle of the science; for this reason, I invite the criticism of European geologists on my facts and inferences, and their aid in solving many difficulties which still remain unexplained.

I stated in my former Paper that the plains and lower hills and valleys of the coast region, extending from Cape Town to the mouth of the Fish River, were formed of blue slaty and sandy rocks. These were all referred to one formation by Lichtenstein.

The various corps of an army drawn up in line of battle are distinguished not only by their various uniforms, but also by the distinct position assigned them in the field. This greatly helps the general to the immediate disposition of sharpshooters, infantry, or artillery, as the fate of battle may require. Most of the minerals which are the basis of our commercial and mining greatness are obtained from the Carboniferous system. The industrialist obtains them from various parts of this formation. When a new substance has presented itself, having characters very different from the ordinary rank and file of coals, clay-bands, or fire-clays, its stratigraphical position will help us to determine if it is entitled to a distinct character. If its place be distinct from those of the ordinary coals, if likewise there are indications of a different physical mode of formation, then its claim to be a new mineral will be greatly strengthened.

The lower carboniferous rocks of Scotland consist of shales and sandstones more than a thousand feet thick, termed by Mr. Maclaren the calciferous sandstone series. A freshwater limestone, equivalent to that worked at Burdie House, near Edinburgh, is the predominant member of this group. This limestone runs in an elliptical area round that city for nearly twenty-four miles, extending through Fife, Midlothian, and Linlithgowshires. Part of this series extends to the south-east of the town of Bathgate, round which is the Torbane Hill mineral basin.

The authenticated discovery of human remains in strata of high historical antiquity in the Heathery Burn Cave, near Stanhope, and at Muskham in the Valley of the Trent, and the approaching discussion which “looms in the distance” of Palæontology consequent upon the proximate publication of Sir Charles Lyell's ‘Antiquity of Man,’ induce me to offer a few observations on the osteological nature of the evidences at present afforded to us of man contemporary with the mammoths, with a view, if possible, to determine the grade of the individuals whose remains have been preserved in suprapliocene strata.

The deposits on the banks of the Somme (Abbeville, St. Acheul, St. Roch), at Grenelle near Paris, at Hoxne in Suffolk, at Brixham and Kent's Hole in the south-west of England, under Gray's-Innlane in Middlesex, at Maccagnone in Sicily, the Kjökkenmöddings in Denmark, and at Wookey Hole in the Mendips, indicate to us the existence of man in a low state of civilization, as proved by his weapons, but of whom the osteological evidences have not yet been discovered. In these deposits the bones of extinct mammalia are found, as well as a more or less percentage of animals of existing species.

At Engis in Belgium, Massat in France, Aurignac in Gascony, Muskham in the Valley of the Trent, the Lake habitations in Switzerland, proofs of man have been found in strata contemporaneous with the most recently extinct animals.

This was found by a muleteer, in June, 1858, when passing the Cordillera from Catamarca to Copiapo, and brought by him to the latter city. He took it to be a rodado, or piece of silver-ore that had been broken from a vein and rounded by being washed with stones, say in the bed of a river; but on its being examined by Dr. David Garcia (a pupil of Domeyko), at Copiapo, he pronounced it to be a mass of meteoric iron,

Dr. D. Garcia is the manager of the “Transito“ maquina or silver amalgamating works, and has this specimen in his possession.

It is near eleven years since that in travelling through Howison’s Poort,* one of the most picturesque of the many fine mountain passes through the quartzite ranges of the eastern province of the Cape Colony, my attention was drawn to a geological fact to which observation in other parts of the Colony has since led me to attach no little importance. In the construction of the main road from Port Elizabeth to Graham’s Town, many deep cuttings have been made in the solid quartzite rock. In many instances the rock seen in these works lost its crystalline character gradually, and assumed that of a hard blue sandstone, and at length nearly resembled the blue fossiliferous shales and sandstones of the Ecca.

While almost every week increases our knowledge of the geology of distant parts of the earth, there is one small island in the British seas, famed for its picturesque beauty, and peculiarly interesting on account of its historical associations, of the geological features of which very little is known, and even that little scarcely ever referred to in geological treatises. This may have arisen mainly from the fact of there having been as yet no official survey of this island; while those portions of the geological series represented in the Manx rocks having been typically established from other localities, it did not seem to present geological features sufficiently novel or peculiar to require any special investigation. Still, in the earlier years of the science, several eminent geologists did describe, with greater or less minuteness, some of its geological appearances: for example, Professor E. Forbes, who wrote a short account of Manx geology for one of the local guide-books; and a much more elaborate account was written by the Rev. J. G. Cumming, F.G.S., and published in 1848; but the rapid progress of the science, while it does not deprive these descriptions of all value, has in a great measure superseded them, and opened here a wide and almost untrodden field for the modern geologist. Having for several years resided on the island, and being convinced that many of the phenomena presented by the Manx rocks, if not altogether new to the geologist, are yet of remarkable interest, and capable of taking a great part in the solution of many of the problems which geologists are now endeavouring to solve, I have written the following brief account, with the view of diffusing, through the pages of the ‘Geologist,’ a more general knowledge of the geology of the Isle of Man, and in the hope of attracting to the subject that attention which it deserves.

There only remains now to notice the post-Tertiary deposits to complete this account of the geology of Maidstone. The surface-soil and the earth filling in and covering over the faults and large fissures consist of clay, gravel, “sharp” drift-sand, and fine sand, all being sedimentary deposits from water under different rates of motion. The exteriors of the highest masses of rock show the effects of a powerful erosion continued for a long period of time; but this action was not the dashing of billows, for some surfaces of the rock, although worn to a great extent, have portions of fragile shells standing out from their surfaces, just as in the cavernous gutters of the rock masses of spiculæ jut out from the walls, the loose sand or soft hassock having been washed away.

As Mr. E. Hull of the Geological Survey, in his ‘Geology of the Country around Cheltenham’ (1857), p. 24, complains of the scarcity of sections of the Upper Lias in that district, and as a section in the Railway, near Oddington and Stow-on-the-Wold, exhibits a section of Liassic clays, which appear to me to belong to the upper series, I beg to offer you the following rough but accurate account of the bed there exposed.

The list of fossils has been made with the assistance of a geological friend in London.

The fossil represented in the accompanying figures is one of that kind whose discovery severely tests the faith of the naturalist in his previous conclusions, and may appear to raise a suspicion not only respecting the sufficiency of his data, but even as to the correctness of his method of investigation. Almost any person, at first sight of the specimen, would think he was looking at a coral, and it would seem like an attempt to impose on one's credulity to say it was a bivalve shell, like an oyster or a clam.

Yet there is no doubt it is a kind of Hippurite, although the rays give it a novel and extraordinary character. The discoverer had quite satisfied himself on this point before he brought it to England and placed it in our hands. It was found last year (January, 1861), by Mr. Lucas Barrett, F.G.S., Director of the Geological Survey of the British West Indies, in the parish of Portland, in the north-east of Jamaica. This part of the island, lying to the north of the principal range of the Blue Mountains, which run east and west, is itself mountainous, rising to the height of 7000 feet. The hippurite limestone is well seen on the banks of the Back river, a tributary of the Rio Grande, at about fifteen miles from the coast.

It is not improbable that, in the eager search for flint implements, some of us may underrate the importance of objects which might serve to throw light upon the interesting subject of the antiquity of the human race. Anxiety not to lose any evidence bearing upon this point will, doubtless, be accepted as a sufficient excuse for re-opening the question as to the perforated balls found in the Drift, displaying proofs of the workmanship of man. We have had conflicting opinions upon these objects, but I am not aware that anything decisive has been published. It is desirable, under such circumstances, to obtain as many facts as possible, and get the question settled. My first acquaintance with these objects occurred about fifteen years ago; for as I was uncovering some Anglo-Saxon remains in the Kempston Gravel-pit, near Bedford, I found several round stones perforated through ; and so strongly was I impressed at the time that they were the personal ornaments of the ancient chieftain just exhumed, that I actually presented them to the Archaeological Society as Saxon beads. Subsequent examinations of the Drift gravels, however, convinced me that the balls were of an earlier period than the Anglo-Saxon, whether works of art or natural productions. They are described by some naturalists to be specimens of the Chalk fossil named as the Coscinopora globularis; but the great question for consideration is, how did they become perforated? The theory put forth by some objectors is that they were bored by an insect or worm when they were in their soft, primitive condition; but it is difficult to understand how the most voracious insect could seize upon a perfectly round object and drill through it, most accurately, a thoroughly straight tunnel of uniform bore.

The limestones, slates, and associated sandstones of North and South Devon and Cornwall have, as is well known, caused much perplexity as to their real place in the chronological series of the geologist. Thanks, however, to the labours of Professor Sedgwick, Sir R. I. Murchison, Mr. Lonsdale, and others, the problem is now generally admitted to be solved; the rocks in question are the representatives or equivalents of the Old Red Sandstone of Scotland and elsewhere; they belong to what is known as the Devonian age of the world. Some little difficulty, however, exists—or rather once existed—in the way of the full acceptance of this chronology. The rocks of Devonshire are crowded with the remains of invertebrate animals, especially shells, corals, and sponges; whilst the supposed contemporary deposits in Scotland and the adjacent islets are so rich in fossil fish that, in the language of the late Hugh Miller, “Orkney, were the trade once opened up, could supply with ichthyolites, by the ton and the shipload, the museums of the world.” But the fossils characteristic of either of these districts are not found in the other; there are no organic links connecting the two localities. Scotland does not yield the mollusks or zoophytes of Devonshire, nor is there recorded in the latter district more than the faintest trace of the ichthyolitic wealth of the North. Though this fact may still have difficulties connected with it, they have ceased to be chronological, for Sir R. I. Murchison tells us “that the same fossil fishes, of species well known in the middle and upper portions of the Old Red of Scotland, and which in large tracts of Russia lie alone in sandstone, are in many other places found intermixed, in the same bed, with those shells that characterize the group in its slaty and calcareous form in Devonshire, the Rhenish country, and the Boulonnais. This phenomenon, first brought to light in the work on Russia, by myself and colleagues, demonstrates more than any other the identity of deposits of this age, so different in lithological aspect, in Devonshire on the one hand, and central England and Scotland on the other. The fact of this intermixture completely puts an end to all dispute respecting the identification of the central and upper masses at least of the Old Red of Scotland with the calcareous deposits of Devonshire and the Eifel.”

Those who are familiar with Sir Charles Lyell's ‘Principles of Geology’ will remember the illustrations given, in the twentieth chapter of his able and most philosophical book, of the action of the sea on various parts of the coasts of Britain. The changes that have taken place in some parts, even within the historical period, have been very considerable, and perhaps none more so than on the eastern and south-eastern coasts of England, where the encroachments of the sea seem to have been of the most destructive character. From the western coast of the Isle of Sheppey, extending eastwards to Herne Bay, Reculver, and Thanet, the destructive action of both the sea and the other elements has been witnessed by many in our own time; and every year tells its history of a change in some part of this line of coast.

I had long contemplated a visit to Reculver, and in the month of June last the opportunity of seeing this part of the coast was afforded me. No place is more accessible from London than Herne Bay; the visitor has the opportunity of running down either by steamer from London Bridge, or by the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway from either the London Bridge or Victoria stations. If time is an object, the latter is preferable, and it was the route I chose, which enabled me to see and learn all that I desired in a single day.

Geologizing, with some friends, on the south coast of the Isle of Wight, a few summers since (1859), we noticed some puddles of rain-water in the clay talus of the Wealden Cliffs near Brook Point, and observed that, like other such surfaces, the partially dried clay beds of the diminished pools showed rain-prints, foot-tracks, trails, and the rings of broken bubbles. Amongst these various markings are convex trail-like lines (fig. 1), which at first appeared difficult to account for; but, recollecting Mr. A. Hancock's remarks on the so-called Annelide tracks, published in the ‘Annals of Natural History,’ 3rd series, vol. ii. p. 443, plates 14–19, I looked carefully on the wetter parts of the clay, along the edges of the puddles, and soon saw little beetle-like insects boring into the clay, and apparently traversing such galleries, just beneath the surface, as the little narrow convex sinuous markings may be due to. One of these insects I enclosed alive in its clay habitat, but I could not afterwards find it, when I had the specimen of surface-marked clay at home. The cut edges of the pieces of clay show the openings of the numerous little galleries (fig. 1b). Some of them are close to the surface; some are an eighth of an inch or more below: in the latter case, probably the roof of the gallery received coatings of mud after it was raised up, retaining its convexity.

While examining lately the magnificent collection of fossil musk-deer, from Auvergne, in the collection of the British Museum, in the case devoted to the specimens collected by M. Bravard from the lacustrine calcareous marls of Puy-de-Dôme, a singular anomaly in the structure of the crania of the genus Cainotherium met my view. All the writers who have described the osteology of the skull of Ruminants have noticed those singular deficiencies or lacunæ which exist at the points of junction of the various bones, and which have been variously described as “lacrymal openings” or “facial interspaces.” Their function has been unknown, and their presence, although constant in each individual species, is variable in species nearly allied to each other. In the Cainotherium commune, Bravard (Microtherium Renggeri), nearest allied to the Hyomoschus of the present day, ossification at this lacrymal point of intersection has extended to a much less degree than in its living analogue. The interspace in Cainotherium is longer in proportion to its breadth than the existing musk-deer (Moschus chrysogaster). In the Dorcatherium Naui, Kaup., on the contrary, not the slightest interspace is exhibited, and the lacrymal angle is definitively closed: In some of the specimens named Cainotherium in the British Museum, no interspace exists. These probably belong to a separate species, as De Blainville remarks on the typical Cainotherium commune, termed by him Anoplotherium laticurvatum, that it possesses “des lacunes sous-lacrymales assez grandes, en forme de longues virgules.”