Local Scientific Societies, & Minor Prehistoric Remains. 117
knowledge of prehistoric archaeology. But vast as have been
the strides in this department of knowledge within the last
quarter-century, it is certain that even now we are only on
the threshold of a dim region into which advance is becoming
more and more difficult with the increasing scantiness of the
evidence the further we penetrate backwards into the history
of our race. The labours of cave-hunters and searchers into
our ancient river gravels—the excavators of our earthworks
and tumuli—have garnered a rich harvest of facts upon which
is based the existing knowledge of ancient man. The old
method of solving problems in prehistoric archaeology by
attaching a tradition to any ancient monument of which the
history was unknown, has been weighed in the balance and
found wanting. The erudite verbiage of the old-school anti-
quarian has been displaced by the shovel and pick of the
modern investigator.
While the spirit of scientific enquiry is thus gradually
enabling us to reconstruct some few chapters of the past
history of man from such remains as have been preserved to
us, the extreme importance of the relics themselves is as a
natural consequence becoming more and more recognized. It
must have been with the greatest satisfaction that anthropolo-
gists heard that the ancient monuments of this country, thanks
to the foresight of Sir John Lubbock, were to receive Govern-
ment protection. For years past the destruction of the most
venerable relics has been going on, partly through local
ignorance of their value, partly through wilfulness, and
partly through the unavoidable clearance of ground for build-
ing and agricultural purposes. But although the larger and
better-known remains are now secured from demolition,
there are numerous smaller and less-known relics scattered
over the country, which in the course of time are doomed to
destruction by the advancing tide of civilisation. As may be
seen on reference to good topographical works, the irrepa-
rable losses which anthropological science has already in-
curred in this way are enormous. The most deplorable
feature in these cases of destruction is that they have
occurred without adequate scientific supervision, and any