282 BISHOPS STORTFORD SUB-FOSSIL HORSE SKELETON.
At the same time, from its peculiarly sheltered position, at
almost the head of the estuary, the site appears to have been,
inhabited to a somewhat later date than places nearer the more
exposed sea-board. Its further investigation may be expected
to yield important and interesting results, and Mr. Rand is
certainly to be congratulated upon its discovery.
NOTE ON THE BISHOP'S STORTFORD
SUB-FOSSIL HORSE SKELETON.1
A reply to Mr. E. T. Newton's Paper in Essex Naturalist, vol. xvi.,
pp. 132—136.
By the REV. A. IRVING, D.Sc., F.G.S.
MR. NEWTON'S paper in the Essex Naturalist, of
which he has been recently good enough to send me a
copy, is a vary good resume of Prof. Cossar Ewart's work, as
that is expounded in the Quarterly Review for April 1907,
although it is scarcely up to date. That able and illuminating
article has been before me for the past two years, and Prof.
Ewart knows my obligation to it, and to himself for the
personal help and encouragement which he has so kindly given
me in the investigation on which I have been engaged for ths
last two years, so far as time and opportunity have permitted.
I may say that I set out with a sort of prejudice against the
antiquity of the skeleton; and my letter in the Standard of
24th May, 1909, was merely a rough general statement of the
facts that came to light in the inceptive stage of the enquiry.
On that letter, therefore, it is only fair to say (1) that many of
its suggestions were merely tentative and have had to be
corrected from fuller knowledge; (2) that it would not have
been written at the time had not my name been used by some
irresponsible person, who sent "a short notice of the discovery"
to the Standard after, perhaps, having overheard me "thinking
aloud "; (3) that some corrections which I made to his mis-
statements were cut out of my letter for editorial reasons; (4)
that the depth at which the skeleton was found was erroneously
stated as 21/2 feet from the surface, the real depth being 4 to 6
feet, the skeleton having been found lying in a horizontal
position under the steep hill-slope—the position in fact in which.
1 This paper is inserted at Dr. Irving's request.—Ed.