12
GEOLOGICAL NOTES
" It was resting on a bed (5ms. thick) of fine sandy silt-
mixed with fresh water shells. . . . The geological section
is as follows :—Soil, 1ft.: clay, 2ft. 6in.; clay and gravel, mixed
with vegetable matter, 1ft. 3m.; gravel, 1ft. 3m.; sandy silt,
5m.; gravel."
I had the good fortune to see the canoe and the place at
which it was found, in the company of Messrs. W. and H. Cole,
and under the guidance of Mr. Traill, a few days after its dis-
covery. (See Frontispiece to present volume). Mr. Traill
remarks that the canoe seems to have been drawn up on
the bank of an old river. Probably it had been lying in the
shallow part of the old channel when a sudden flood had carried
it down and deposited it where it had become entangled in
vegetable debris, had sunk and become silted up. It may be
noticed that the section given by Mr. Traill much resembles
that near the disused channel in Fig. 5. As these ancient dug-
out canoes vary very much in size, it may be worth adding that
this one was 14ft. 10in, long, 2ft. 4in. broad, and 1ft. 4m. deep,
taking the extreme measurements in each case. (Fig. 8.)
Munro, in The Lake Dwellings of Europe, remarks that the
intimate association of these dug-out canoes with lake-dwellings
has been noted both in the British Isles and on the Continent.
He adds that their discovery in lakes and bogs has been con-
sidered by Dr. Stuart as an indication of the existence of Cran-
nogs. Dr. Munro thinks that the period of greatest develop-
ment of the Scottish and Irish Lake-dwellings was during the
pre-Roman Iron Age, but points out that neither the use of
lake-dwellings nor that of dug-out canoes is necessarily pre-
historic. In the case of this Lea dug-out, Mr. Traill remarks
that "several pieces of Roman pottery and a well-made iron
spear-head have been found at points ranging from fifty to a
hundred yards from where the dug-out was lying, and in prac-
tically the same stratum." But this, though an interesting fact,
by no means—as we have seen—involves a similar antiquity for
the dug-out.
Just as the Glacial Period doubtless came practically to an
end in South-Eastern Britain many centuries before the climate
had materially changed in Northern Scotland, so dug-out canoes
must have been in use in the wilder parts of the British Isles
long after they had become extinct on the Thames and Lea.