cxxvi Journal of Proceedings.
description of a large number of flint implements and flakes, of Paleolithic
age, found by Messrs. Amos Herring, John Herring, P. Thornhill, W. H.
Smith, W. Swain, and W. J. Swain, at Nazing, Parndon, High Beach,
Wanstead, Leyton, West Ham Park, Ilford, Plashet, Plaistow and East
Tilbury. The collection was exhibited at the meeting, and consisted of
twenty-five entire flint implements, three broken specimens, fifty-four
flint flakes, fifteen flint "scrapes," and sixteen quartzite "hammer-
stones." [The paper is withheld for the present, in order to obtain from
the author more precise indications of the spots from which the gravels
yielding the specimens came, and other details.—Ed.]
Mr. Worthington G. Smith said that he believed every member of the
Essex Field Club would heartily join with him in passing a vote of thanks
to Mr. W. H. Smith and his friends for the interesting paper they had
just listened to. The paper showed that Mr. Smith and his friends were
not mere collectors, but very hard workers, and keen and original
observers. He was especially glad that these observers had lighted on
his " Palaeolithic Floor," near Leyton, near a place where he had himself
seen and described it before the Anthropological Institute about two
years ago. He was also very pleased to see the flakes as sharp as knives
found in situ by Mr. Herring in that truly wonderful stratum or" Floor."
He said it was remarkable that no animal or plant remains had been
found by Mr. Smith and his friends, but he believed the " Floor," with
its contained animal and plant remains, had been nearly all denuded
away in south-west Essex. In the much more perfect position discovered
by himself near Stoke Newington Common, the remains of the well-
known quaternary mammals were very frequent in company with a large
assemblage of fossil shells, of freshwater molluscs and plants. He then
instanced the finding of the fossil scapula or blade bone of the mammoth
embedded in fine sand (full of freshwater shells), and with a keen imple-
ment on its outer surface ; the find is now in the British Museum at
Bloomsbury. Mr, Smith also instanced the discovery, in the Spring of
the present year, of what he thought was possibly the collapsed hut of a
Palaeolithic man. In the sand under the " trail and warp " at Stoke New-
ington, two long pointed stakes of birch were found side by side on the
"Palaeolithic Floor." With these stakes there was a thick mass of the
fronds and perennial root stocks of the Flowering Fern, Osmunda
regalis, a great quantity of branches of Clematis vitalba, pieces of
alder and hazel, a single hazel nut with rushes and grass, numerous
pieces of wood belonging to diverse trees, and fragments of charred
wood. Mixed with these materials were numerous keen flakes, and on
shaking the fern remains to pieces, a small, keen Palaeolithic implement
was disengaged (the example is now in the British Museum), and the
fossil radius, with both ends broken oft, belonging to a small horse.
These objects gave a clear insight into some of the immediate surround-
ings of the later race of Palaeolithic men at the north of London. Mr.
Smith said the small mass of replaced flakes from Crayford, also