Journal of Proceedings. xxv
as the denuding action of the river went on, so that the lower beds of
alluvium were of course formed much later than the higher beds. The
association of flint implements with the remains of extinct Mammalia in
the high-level gravels brought them face to face with the most ancient
evidence of the existence of man. Whether that period represented the
actual appearance of man upon the globe was of course another question.
He thought that most probably it did not, because the mere intelligence
required to work a flint must have taken ages to develop. M. Boucher de
Perthes, in 1847, was among the first to call attention to the occurrence
of flint implements associated with remains of the Mammoth in the high-
level beds of Abbeville, on the River Somme ; and his observation, like
many other new observations in Science, was allowed to remain for long
unheeded; but the matter had at length been inquired into, and it had
gradually become established that the human makers of these Palaeolithic
weapons were contemporaries of the Mammoth and other extinct animals.
There was yet another class of evidences. In many limestone countries
water charged with carbonic acid had eaten away large caves in the lime-
stone. These caves, many of which were probably pre-glacial, had served
as storehouses for the debris left in remote ages, and these remains had
there become cemented up and were waiting to be read as records of the
past. In some of these caves the whole chronological data had been pre-
served ; and we had the whole series, from post-Roman to pre-Roman,
down to the ages of iron and bronze, and lastly to the Neolithic and
Palaeolithic Periods. The occurrence in these caves of the same animals
that were found in the high-level gravels showed that the caves were also
of Palaeolithic age. In the South of France, in a cave belonging to a
period intermediate between the two Stone Ages, there had been found a
fragment of a Mammoth's tusk, with a figure of this animal carved upon
it by the hand of Palaeolithic man, and also the drawing of a Reindeer on
a portion of the antler of this animal, together with other pre-historic
works of rude art. A more convincing proof of the co-existence of Man
with the Mammoth could not possibly be given. Palaeolithic implements
were somewhat rare, and were generally found at considerable depths in
ancient river gravels; Neolithic implements were much more commonly
distributed, and were found either actually on the surface of the ground
or at a slight depth beneath it. Their esteemed honorary member, General
Pitt-Rivers, had opened some of the ancient hill-forts at Cissbury, near
Worthing, Sussex, and there he appeared to have found a flint-implement
manufactory, as there were hundreds of implements in all stages of
manufacture, and flakes scattered about in profusion. A similar manu-
factory had been recently discovered near Crayford, in Kent. The
conclusion seems to be that these implements had been objects of barter,
and that factories had been established at certain places where the chalk
had been tunnelled into for the purpose of getting out the flints. Mr.
Meldola then explained how worked flakes could be distinguished from
merely accidental scalings or fractures, all of them having what is known
d