Journal of Proceedings. xxxiii
but it would be of course necessary in the first place to obtain per-
mission from the Forest Conservators. He would therefore propose that
the matter should be put in hand at once, and that an official letter on
the part of the Club should be addressed to the Epping Forest Com-
mittee, after which—supposing, as he was led to anticipate, that the
required permission should be granted—circulars should be sent round
to all the members in order to raise the requisite funds.
This proposal was received with acclamation.
The President then entered upon the results of the afternoon's
excursion. He stated that the Ilford Pits which they had visited were
of world-wide celebrity in the annals of Post-Glacial Geology. The
brick-earth, gravel, &c, of which sections were there exposed, were
deposited at a time when the old Thames was a gigantic stream, and
when the Mammoth and other great mammals were denizens of this
country. It added greatly to the interest of the remains from these
pits to know that the animals of that period were contemporaneous
with Palaeolithic man. The past had there "buried its dead," but the
past was not a "dead past." Their worthy and esteemed member, Sir
Antonio Brady, had acted the part of resurrectionist, and by a skilful
process of "body-snatching," described in full at one of their previous
meetings, had succeeded in exhuming and preserving these great
mammals for the instruction of modern and future geologists. In
addition to their conductors, Sir Antonio Brady and Mr. Henry
Walker, the President said that they were honoured that afternoon by
the presence of a Naturalist of European reputation, his friend Mr.
Alfred R. Wallace ; and they also had amongst them Mr. Worthington
Smith, who had recently acquired celebrity as a discoverer of Palaeo-
lithic implements. He had much pleasure in calling upon their
esteemed conductors and the eminent naturalists he had named to
favour the meeting with their remarks.
Sir Antonio Brady, whose name was received with much enthusiasm,
said that, although suffering from a severe cold which had prevented
him from making any extended remarks at the pit, it gave him much
pleasure to be present, and have an opportunity of listening to the
observations of some of the gentlemen he saw around him. Sir Antonio
brought up with him specimens of stone implements and carved bones
from his extensive collection, which he considered to be of special
value and interest in reference to the question of the antiquity of man.
These included a portion of a horn of Reindeer, with a carved profile
of a man's face, found in a Glacial Drift. He considered it to be the
oldest work of art known, and to his mind it; was an evidence of the
existence of Palaeolithic man in the Glacial age. Also a carved figure
presenting a human face when examined in front, and the representa-
tion of a bird or beast when viewed sideways ; this he took to be one
of the Penates of these ancient men. He also exhibited a Flint Spear-
3