found in situ. That was dug out of the gravel on the top of Allington Hill by Mrs. Hughes. The height of this gravel above sea level is about 150 ft. These high

level gravels are the result of the winnowing of the subsoil and soil derived directly from the chalk, from the boulder clay, and from ancient gravels of unknown age and origin. When they were deposited, the fen we now see did not exist.

It is most probable that the Paleolithic age was of very long duration, so that the pattern of flint implements had time to change. Man had, no doubt, a great variety of forms in use at the same time, depending upon the different purposes for which they were employed, and the variations in the flints out of which they were manufactured. But the occurrence of any varieties together in the same gravel bed does not prove that they belong to the same age, because the condition of the implements and other flints in the terrace gravels clearly shows that they have long lain scattered about on the ground, and that the gravel beds are only masses of winnowed surface soils arrested in their downward creep.

The forms of life also had time to change, and we do notice a succession in them. The hippopotamus and lion had their day. The elephant of African type made way for a form whose affinities were more with the Indian species. The leptorhine was succeeded by the tichorhine rhinoceros. The predominance of certain forms of life has suggested a chronological classification of the Paleolithic caves of France.

On approaching the existing Fenland, which, as we have inferred above, is a region of depression, we find that the ancient gravels, which generally have been observed on higher ground in terraces connected with the river valleys, have sunk below the level of the fens; and, where artificial excavations have exposed the old surface, are seen to occur in troughs and pans, or kneaded into the sodden upper part of the Jurassic and Cretaceous clays which underlie the fenland. In these patches of gravel, which are of older date than any of the deposits properly belonging to the fens, remains of the great extinct. mammals-such as, for instance, rhinoceros and

elephant-have been found. They generally occur, as in the Whittlesea and Barrington gravels, in the very base of the deposit, where some of the bones appear to have been long exposed to surface action, and some to have been gnawed, and some water-worn.

We have another source of error in our speculations as to the origin, age, and mode of deposit of the gravels in the Fenland. Some of the older gravels have been washed down to lower levels. In these remanié deposits, the remains of the great mammals lie scattered and waterworn. Associated bones are never found, and elephant molars are rolled into pebbles. But in the true Fen deposits no Palæolithic implements have been found, nor any remains of the distinctive animals associated with Paleolithic man. The recorded cases of rhinoceros, etc., were from one of the ancient gravels beneath, and of earlier date than any of the fen beds.

The

Around the margin of the fen, or on the old surface on which the fen beds lie, a few implements of an intermediate form occurred. They were too few to generalise from with any certainty. They were more straightsided, chisel-shaped and thinner, than any of the ordinary Palæolithic types, and in these respects approached the fen type of Neolithic implements. doubt respecting them arose chiefly from the possibility of their being unfinished Neolithic implements,_roughdressed previous to grinding and polishing. For we must remember that Neolithic axes in their earlier stages were trimmed into forms much resembling Palæolithic implements; and when the form aimed at was the thin rectangular type of the Fens, it is probable that the rough flint would be trimmed down as nearly as possible to the required shape before any attempt was made to grind or polish it. The result must have been a rough-trimmed rectangular form somewhat like that now referred to.

Still, on the whole, from their graduating more easily into forms known on other evidence to be of Paleolithic age, I believe all of those which I exhibit in that class this evening to belong to the earlier group.

We cannot separate the question of the age and

origin of the gravels that surround them, and occur in patches under the fens, from the history of Paleolithic man. It is very rarely that we can find evidence of the contemporaneous existence of man, but we can establish some sequence in the order of succession of the beds from the remains of extinct or still-existing plants and animals found in them; and, if in any well-authenticated cases, remains of man have been proved to occur with any of these groups of fossil remains, then our history of man in any district must take account of the occurrence there of deposits identical with those in which, in other localities, his remains have been found.

Whatever may have been the history of those times, and however long the Paleolithic age, all we know about it in connection with the Fens is gathered from the flint implements we find scattered over the surface, or gathered in larger numbers here and there in the terraces of gravel. But Palæolithic man had passed away long before any of the peat now seen in the fens was formed.

He

Of Neolithic man we know more. He lived during the age when the peat of the Fenland was being formed. He dug pits on the hills near by, 30 ft. or 40 ft. deep, to obtain flint for the manufacture of implements. trimmed them on the spot, leaving the ground covered with chips and flakes, and partly-finished implements which some flaw had marred in the making. He carried them away to finish, for use or for barter. He hunted the urus into the fen, and poleaxed him there. There is in the Woodwardian Museum at Cambridge a fine specimen, which was found with a polished stone weapon sticking in its skull.

Yet he has left no trace of his dwelling-place, no evidence as to his home life, no indication of the numbers of his family or tribe. It is doubtful if we have any interment that can be referred to this age.

There are two very distinct and well-marked types of Neolithic implements to be found in the Fen district. One is a long, thin, flat, straight-edged, chisel-like form, ground to a straight or slightly-curved cutting edge at the broader end, but generally merely rough-dressed

elsewhere. The implement found sticking in the skull of the urus was of this type. I have not seen any specimens of this type made of any material but flint, and that flint such as is found in the district. The other type is a thick form like a double wedge, with bulging oftener than straight sides, and a curved cutting edge commonly oblique to the axis of the instrument. These are generally made of the mottled flint of the northern counties, or of felstone, or less commonly of greenstone, and they are always well ground all over. This is the type most common further north, and the material also points to its having been introduced from the north by barter or otherwise, but I cannot tell which group is the older.

Have we in these implements evidence of two different races, both of Neolithic age, which successively occupied the Fenland?

Next, we have records of a people who knew the use of metal. From what has been made out elsewhere, we may suppose that they were of different nationality from the Neolithic folk. There is no evidence of any great changes in the physical geography of the district between the Neolithic age and that of Bronze. We do not know where or how the people of the Bronze age lived, but in this case we do know where and how they were buried. On the dry chalk downs around, we find the tumuli in which are urns containing the ashes of their dead. These are roughly moulded, rudely ornamented with cord marks, and rows of indents made with a pointed bone or other such instrument. They are sufficiently well baked to allow of their being handled to receive the collected ashes from the pyre, and to bear the weight of the earth heaped over them. They may have been baked in the pyre, but they cannot have received the firing where they are found, because they lie either in the earth, or covered by or inverted on a slab, and these generally show no signs of fire.

Objects such as these urns are too fragile to carry about. I can, therefore, exhibit only sketches of them.

It is again from evidence obtained elsewhere that we identify the bodies buried in the tumuli of Allington Hill, for instance, with the people of the Bronze age.

On this high ground we have thus evidence of successive occupation by the people of the Palæolithic, the Neolithic and the Bronze ages. Of these, the Paleolithic folk have left no traces in the Fens, because the Fens which we see there now did not exist in Palæolithic times.

But man of the Neolithic and Bronze ages has left traces in the peat and silt. Bronze weapons are found here and there, all round and in the fens. A large number of bronze swords and palstaves, now in the collection of Mr. Pell, of Wilburton Manor, were found all together in the peat at the edge of the fen, associated in such a manner as to suggest that they had been in a boat which had sunk; but I am unable to offer any more exact evidence as to the nature of the peat in which they were found, or other circumstances from which we might infer how they came there. Canoes made out of a single tree hollowed out have been found in several places in the fens, but I am not aware of any evidence that would exactly fix their age.

The condition of the timber found in the fens suggests many interesting enquiries, for the wood of ancient canoes is in the same condition as the prostrate trees of unknown age. On the one hand, we see much of it rapidly becoming part of the peat, and when dried crumbling into dust; while, on the other hand, we find some of the wood sound though sodden, and when dried as hard as ebony. We further notice a difference of shade in the two kinds. The more rotten, peat-like wood has a brown or red-black colour; the harder wood has an inky or blue-black tinge. It is not uncommon to find the outside of the tree perishing into the brown peat, while the inside shows the grain of solid wood with a bluepurple bloom. Therefore, some change is set up where there is free percolation of water on the surface of the wood, and through it when it has been opened out by decomposition, different from that which takes place when the water passes-as does the sap in the growing treethrough the tissues. I have never estimated how much water there is in a piece of oak lying in wet peat, as compared with that in the living tree. It probably