246 THE LATE LIEUT.-GENERAL PITT-RIVERS.
science. Among other distinctions the General was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society, had the title of D.C.L. conferred on him by Oxford University
and was for many years the President of the Anthropological Institute.
He was born in 1827 and commenced his career of antiquarian research
under the guidance of Canon Greenwell during his explorations on the
Yorkshire Wolds. Among the pioneers who followed up the startling
discoveries of M. Boucher de Perthes, the General was the first to find
palaeolithic implements in the Thames valley near London, an account of
which was given in an important paper read at the Geological Society, 1872, 1
and which attracted much notice.
In 1881 he made the fortunate discovery of flint flakes and an implement
From a bust executed by the late J. E. Boehm. R.A.
embedded in the gravel of the Nile at Thebes. The Egyptians had cut their
tombs in this gravel after it had become indurated and it was from the sides
of these tombs that Gen. Pitt-Rivers chiselled the implements out of gravel
beneath stratified seams of sand and loam, thereby proving the use of flint
implements before the time of the building of Thebes and that they were con-
temporaneous with the gravel in which the tombs were found. (Jour. Anthrop.
Inst. (1882), Vol. xi., p. 382).
In 1866 Gen. Pitt-Rivers drew attention to the discovery of piles found
near London Wall and Southwark in a paper read at the Anthropological
Institute, to which Munro has fully referred in his Lake Dwellings of Europe.
1 Trans. Geol. Soc., vol. xxviii., p. 449.