PRE - HISTORY IN ESSEX,
AS RECORDED IN THE JOURNAL
OF THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
I.—Introduction.
PROFESSOR HUXLEY once said that if every book in the
world were destroyed, with the exception of the Philo-
sophical Transactions of the Royal Society, the main structure of
physical science would rest unshaken. In the journal of
our little Club we cannot aspire to such great achievements.
There are whole tracts of science which have been practically
untouched by us. But the subject of pre-history is one
whose progress depends essentially upon the record and
collation of local details ; and in this department I think we may
be justly proud of what we have done. At least, that is the
conclusion at which I have arrived, from the amount of labour
that the preparation of this review of our work has entailed.
This does not mean that if I were beginning again I should
shrink from attempting it. On the contrary, the abstraction
of certain of the main items of information in the various papers,
and the classification of these under subject headings, has been
to me quite a liberal education in pre-history.
When I first thought of taking this subject for my Address,
I intended tp deal only with the more important papers in our
journal. But on second thoughts, it appeared to me that
it would be more useful to disinter minor notices also ; for
many of these contain important information and valuable
suggestions.
In the classification, I found it impracticable to follow any