* Varies between 224 and 24, but 24 was the authorised weight. The weight of the Sovereign now in circulation is 123-274 grains.

It is believed that the half-sovereign and the ryal were the same coin.

§ All the nobles coined during and since the reign of Edward IV were termed Rials, and the old coins in circulation Rose-nobles, or Rials, and current at 8s. 4d. The noble, first coined at 6s. 8d., thus rose to 8s. 4d., and as shown above under the head of Rial, was worth 10s. in 1504.

THE LIMESTONE CAVES OF CRAVEN AND

THEIR ANCIENT INHABITANTS.

By Henry Ecroyd Smith.

READ 11TH May, 1865.

THE Great Scaur Limestone of the North of England covers a large area, extending from the coalfield of Durham on the north, to mid Derbyshire on the south, there terminating in the well-known Peak.

It is, however, to a portion only of this extensive tract that attention is now invited-a section of Craven, a district comprising much of north-west Yorkshire. The locality of the larger cavernous recesses, peculiar to this geological formation, ranges between higher Wharfdale on the east, and the hills of Ingleborough and Whernside on the west, with Malham, Settle and Bentham lying on the southern side. Here and there, most irregularly, but throughout its surfaceextent, this "Lower Scar Limestone" (of Professor Phillips) crops out, exhibiting ranges of abrupt perpendicular escarpment, termed scaurs;* but it is chiefly upon its outer border, where, sharply abutting upon the surrounding valleys, these escarpments-abounding in fissures resulting from volcanic action-present really grand and impressive features. The wild ravine of Gordale, described even by our quiet mountain poet Wordsworth, as "a den where the earthquake "might hide her cubs;" the imposing "cove" of Malham;

• Locally corrupted into scar; the original Saxon designation, however, is yet retained among the limestone hills of Derbyshire.

or the isolated, abrupt and towering crag of Kilnsey; each forms a picture at once sublime and beautiful, never to be erased from the mind of the visitor.

The district possesses several remarkable and deservedly noted caves, as Yordas, Clapham, Weathercote and others, in the immediate vicinity of Ingleborough; but in these no traces of human occupation have been known to occur, with the exception of a few Edwardian pennies, found after floods in a cavernous recess among the rocks at Ivescar, near Chapel-le-dale, and which have not improbably been washed from some higher locality on the eastern slope of Whernside. These caverns have mostly been known for a lengthened period; and it is impossible now to say what relics might not have been recognised, had a discriminating antiquary "been "there to see," on occasion of their discovery; although, as wet caves, or, in other words, being still subterraneous watercourses in wet seasons, numerous traces of either human or animal occupation were not to be anticipated. That near Clapham, on the south-eastern slope of Ingleborough, which is the largest and longest, extending its circuitous course for the almost incredible distance of two-thirds of a mile, shows in many places proof of its water-worn increase-fragments of former beds of the stream, full of pebbles, still adhering, here and there, to the lime-encrusted walls of this splendid stalactitic gallery. Of late years, a spirit of improved archæological inquiry and discrimination has arisen in the more educated class of the community, and among its effects may be claimed the examination of at least two long-known caves for natural and artificial reliques, resulting in a fair amount of success; whilst several new caverns, of no little interest, both in a geological and ethnological point of view, have been discovered, one of which-although, from unavoidable circumstances, never explored as systematically as could be desired-has yet yielded quite a budget of historic