A special vote of thanks was given to Mr. Walter Hawkins for his present of a copy of Vues des Cordillères, et Monumens des Peuples Indigènes de l'Amérique. Par Al. De Humboldt. Folio, Paris, 1810.

A report was read from the Council, announcing the receipt from the Court of Chancery of a part of the surplus income arising from the Stevenson bequest, and suggesting the appropriation of a certain sum to the printing of the calendars of the Society's proclamations and broadsides, which have been compiled by Mr. Robert Lemon, and also for the printing of a catalogue of the library.

Mr. William Romaine Callender, jun., and Mr. Charles Villiers Bayly, were elected Fellows.

The ballot was also taken for Viscount Raynham, M.P., who was declared duly elected Fellow of the Society.

Mr. STEPHEN STONE exhibited a small bucket and a pair of dish-shaped brooches, ornamented with snake-like figures, found accidentally, in the spring of the present year, in the unexplored portion of the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Brighthampton. Also a bone spindle-whirl, and a bone pin, found in the Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Yelford, Oxon.

VISCOUNT FOLKESTONE exhibited, through the Secretary, a bronze dagger-blade, found on his Lordship's estate at Homington, three and a-half miles from Salisbury, by labourers digging a foundation for a cottage. The skeleton with which it was discovered, as well as a small urn, were unfortunately broken into fragments.

Mr. G. B. BAKER exhibited, through Mr. B. B. Woodward, a flint celt, recently found in a pit of the most recent drift gravel on the west side of Bungay Common, Suffolk.

Mr. EVANS read a paper on the occurrence of flint implements in undisturbed beds of gravel, sand, and clay, (such as are known by geologists under the name of drift,) in several localities, both on the Continent and in this country. The first discovery of these implements is due to M. Boucher de Perthes, of Abbeville, who in the pits in that neighbourhood found flints, evidently fashioned by the hand of man, under such conditions as forced upon him the conclusion that they must have been deposited in the spots where they were found at the very period of the formation of the containing beds.

M. de Perthes announced his discoveries in a work entitled Antiquités Celtiques et Antediluviennes, in two volumes, the first published in 1849, and the second in 1857; but owing in some measure to the admixture of theory with the facts therein stated, his work has not received the attention it deserves. The late discovery in the Brixham Cave, in Devonshire, of flint weapons, in conjunction with the bones of the extinct mammals, had brought the question of the co-existence of man with them again prominently forward among geologists, and determined Mr. Prestwich, F.R.S., who has devoted much attention to the later geological formations, to proceed to Abbeville and investigate upon the spot the discoveries of M. de Perthes. He had there been joined by Mr. Evans, and they had together visited the pits where flint weapons had been alleged to have been found, both in the neighbourhood of Abbeville and Amiens. The chalk hills near both these towns are capped with drift, which, apparently, is continued down into the valleys, where it assumes a more arenaceous character, and in these beds of sand, as well as more rarely in the more gravelly beds upon the hills, mammalian remains have been found in large quantities. They include the extinct elephant, rhinoceros, bear, hyæna, tiger, stag, ux,

and horse; in fact, most of the animals whose bones are so commonly associated together in the drift and caverns of the post-Pliocene period.

On the hills near Abbeville, and at St. Acheul, near Amiens, the drift varies in thickness from about ten to twenty feet, and consists of beds of subangular gravel, with large flints, and above them sands containing the fragile shells of freshwater mollusca and beds of brick-earth. It is among the basement beds of gravel, at a slight distance above the chalk, that the flint implements are usually found. They are of three forms:—

1. Flakes of flint, apparently intended for knives or arrow-heads.

2. Pointed implements, usually truncated at the base, and varying in length from four to nine inches, possibly used as spear or lance-heads, which in shape they resemble,

3. Oval or almond-shaped implements, from two to nine inches in length, and with a cutting edge all round. They have generally one end more sharply curved than the other, and occasionally even pointed, and were possibly used as sling-stones, or as axes, cutting at either end, with a handle bound round the centre.

The evidence derived from the implements of the first form is not of much weight, on account of the extreme simplicity of the implements, which at times renders it difficult to determine whether they are produced by art or by natural causes. This simplicity of form would also prevent the flint flakes made at the earliest period from being distinguishable from those of a later date.

The case is different with the other two forms of implements, of which numerous specimens were exhibited, all indisputably worked by the hand of man, and not indebted for their shape to any natural configuration or peculiar fracture of the flint. They present no analogy in form to the well-known implements of the so-called Celtic or stone period, which, moreover, have for the most part some portion, if not the whole, of their surface ground or polished, and are frequently made from other stones than flint. Those from the drift are, on the contrary, never ground, and are exclusively of flint: they have indeed every appearance of having been fabricated by another race of men, who, from the fact that the Celtic stone weapons have been found in the superficial soil above the drift containing these under weapons, as well as from other considerations, must have inhabited this region of the globe at a period anterior to its so-called Celtic occupation.

This difference in form and character from the ordinary types of stone implements strengthened the probability of their having been found under entirely different circumstances; and Mr. Evans then proceeded to examine the evidence of their having been really discovered in undisturbed beds of gravel, sand, and clay. He shewed, from various circumstances in connection with them, such as their discolouration by contact with ochreous matter, whitening when imbedded in a clayey matrix, and in some instances being incrusted with carbonate of lime, the extreme probability of their having been deposited in these beds at the very time of their formation, inasmuch as the unwrought flints adjacent to them had been affected in a precisely similar manner, and to no greater extent. This discolouration and incrustation of the implements also proved that they had really been found in the beds out of which they were asserted to have been dug; and their number, and the depth from the surface at which they were found, were such that if they had been buried at any period subsequent to the formation of the drift, some evident traces must have been left of the

mass.

holes dug for this purpose; but none such had been observed, though many hundreds of the implements had been found dispersed through the But besides this circumstantial evidence, there was the direct testimony of MM. Boucher de Perthes, Rigollot, and others, to the fact of these implements having been discovered underneath undisturbed beds of drift, and many of them under the immediate eye of M. de Perthes, who, indeed, had been the first to point out the existence of these implements to the workmen. Of the correctness of this testimony, the writer, when visiting with Mr. Prestwich the gravel pit at St. Acheul, near Amiens, had received ocular proof. There, at the depth of eleven feet from the surface, in the face of the bank, or wall, or gravel, the whole of which, with the exception of the surface soil, had its layers of sand, gravel, and clay entirely undisturbed, was one of these implements, in situ, with only the edge exposed, the remainder being still firmly embedded in the gravel. After having photographs taken of it so as to verify its position, this implement had been exhumed, and was now exhibited with other specimens. At a subsequent visit of Mr. Prestwich and some other geologists, one of the party, by digging into the bank of gravel at a depth of sixteen feet from the surface, had dislodged a remarkably fine weapon of the oval form, the beds above being also in a perfectly undisturbed condition.

The inevitable conclusion drawn from these facts was, that M. Boucher de Perthes' assertions were fully substantiated, and that these implements had been deposited among the gravel at the time of the formation of the drift. And this conclusion was corroborated in the most remarkable manner by discoveries which had been made long since in England, but whose bearing upon this question had, until the present time, been overlooked.

In the thirteenth volume of the Archæologia is an account by Mr. Frere, in 1797, of the discovery of some flint weapons at Hoxne, in Suffolk, in conjunction with elephant remains, at a depth of eleven to twelve feet from the surface, in gravel, overlaid by sand and brick-earth, presenting a section extremely analogous with some that might be found near Amiens or Abbeville. Some of these weapons are preserved in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries, and in the British Museum, and are identical in form with those found on the Continent. Mr. Prestwich had been to Hoxne and verified the discoveries recorded by Mr. Frere. Flint implements are still found there, as well as mammalian remains, but in diminished quantity, only two of the weapons having been brought to light during last winter.

Another of these implements is in the British Museum, having been formerly in the Kemp and Sloane collections, and is recorded to have been found with an elephant's tooth in Gray's Inn Lane. Similar implements also reported to have been found in the gravel near Peterborough.

These accumulated facts prove almost beyond controversy the simultaneous deposition of instruments worked by the hand of man, with bones of the extinct mammalia in the drift of the post-Pliocene period. Whether the age of man's existence upon the earth is to be carried back far beyond even Egyptian or Chinese chronology, or that of the extinct elephant, rhinoceros, and other animals brought down nearer to the present time than has commonly been allowed, must remain a matter of conjecture. Thus much appears nearly indisputable, that at a remote period, possibly before the separation of England from the Continent, this portion of the globe was densely peopled by man; that implements, the work of his hands, were caught up together with the bones of the extinct mammals, by the rush of water through whose agency the gravel beds were formed; that

above this gravel, in comparatively tranquil fresh water, thick beds of sand and loam were deposited full of the delicate shells of fresh-water mollusca ; and that where all this took place now forms table-land on the summit of hills nearly 200 feet above the level of the sea, in a country whose level is now stationary, and the face of which has remained unaltered during the whole period which history or tradition embraces.

In conclusion, Mr. Evans suggested a careful examination of all beds of drift in which elephant remains had been found, with a view of ascertaining the co-existence with them of these flint implements, and still further illustrating their history.

Their rudeness, and the fact that they had not been sought for by those who have investigated the drift, may well account for their not having been more generally found. He mentioned the banks of the Thames, the eastern coast of England, the western coast of Sussex, the valleys of the Avon, Severn, and Ouse, as localities where the existence of the mammaliferous drift was well known, and where there was every probability that a search for these implements, the earliest records of the human race, would be rewarded by success.

June 9. OCTAVIUS MORGAN, Esq., V.-P., in the Chair.

An unanimous resolution was passed sanctioning the expenditure contemplated by the Council.

The Secretary announced the present to the Society of an oil painting by Lee, R.A., representing the Cromlech at Drew Stainton, Somersetshire, which had been purchased by the subscription of several of the Fellows.

The Rev. Samuel William King was elected Fellow.

Mr. ROBERT COLE exhibited two deeds, one dated the 1st of May, 36 Elizabeth, to which Robert Catesbye, the chief conspirator of the Gunpowder Plot, is an executing party; the other dated 18th of June, 38 Elizabeth, to which Christopher Blounte and Lady Leicester are parties.

Mr. B. NIGHTINGALE exhibited, through the Secretary, several very interesting personal ornaments, obtained from Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in East Kent, consisting of fibulæ, a jewelled buckle, an ouche set with garnets, and a gold bulla.

The Rev. JAMES BAGGE presented a photograph of a small urn, similar in shape to many discovered in the ancient potteries of the New Forest, explored by the Rev. J. P. Bartlett and Mr. Akerman. (See Archæologia, vol. xxxv., plate iii. fig. 6.) The present example was found with a human skeleton at Crux Easton, near Newbury, a short time since.

Mr. STEPHEN STONE exhibited the brass matrix of an oval-pointed seal, bearing the device of a squirrel, and the legend,

JE SVIS SEL DAMVR LEL.

It was found lately in a field near Yelford, Oxon.

Mr. JOHN WILLIAMS presented to the Society's Museum a flint arrowhead found in Ireland.

Mrs. MARY ANN EVERETT GREEN communicated, through Mr. Bruce, V.-P., transcripts of two petitions preserved in the State Paper Office. The first is from Mistress Cromwell, the widow of the Protector, praying the King to "vouchsafe her a protection, without which she cannot expect now, in her old age, a safe retirement in any place." The other is from Henry Cromwell, the Protector's son, praying the King to "deale favorably with him," with regard to forfeited lands in Ireland. The first of

these petitions is endorsed in the handwriting of Secretary Nicholas,"Old Mrs. Cromwell, Noll's wife-Petition."

Mr. W. H. HART read Observations on some Brasses in the Church of Low Leighton, Essex, which had been tampered with in some injudicious. attempts at restoration.

Mr. J. J. HOWARD exhibited four deeds, with seals attached, preserved in the muniment-room at Maxstoke Castle, Warwickshire, which were illustrated by observations, read by Mr. T. W. King, York Herald.

Mr. Howard also exhibited a document under the hands and seals of William Fleetwood, Serjeant-at-Law, Recorder of London temp. Elizabeth, and Matthew Dale, Esq., two of the Commissioners of the Queen's Subsidy appointed for the borough of Southwark :

We, Willm Fletewood, Seriant-at-lawe, Recorder of the Cittie of London, and Mathew Dale, Esquyer, two of the Comissions amongest others, for the Borrough of Southwarke, in the Countie of Surrey, appoynted for the taxinge and levyinge of the Subsidie graunted to the Queenes Matie, at the pliament houlden at West'm in the xxixth yere of her Maty Raigne, doe signifie unto the Lord highe Treasurer of England and to the Barons of her Mat' Cot of Excheq', that John White, gent, at the taxinge and levying of the last payment of the same subsidie, was comorant and abyding wth his houshould and family in the Bridghouse, wthin the said Borroughe, and was there assessed and taxed at vili. in goods, and hath payed for the last payment of the said subsidie after that rate to her Mat'. In witnes wherof we the said Comysions have hereunto set our hands and seales, the xijth day of Aprill, 1589, Annoq: R: R'ne: Eliz: xxxi.

(Signed and sealed)

"W. FLETEWOODE, MATHEW DALE." The seal of Fletewood is his coat of arms,-Party per pale nebulé az. and or, six martlets counterchanged. The seal of Matthew Dale is a bird with wings outspread.

The certificate is on paper, and the seals are impressed on pieces of the same paper cut out and turned up for the purpose.

Mr. CORNER stated that he had, at the request of Mr. Howard, prepared some account of Fletewood, comprising some letters from the State Paper Office which had not yet appeared in print, and some wills not hitherto referred to in any of the memoirs of Fletewood, of whom there would be found a very well written account in the Biographia Britannica by Dr. Kippis and other learned authors, and that many of Fletewood's letters, which are very curious and illustrative of the state of society at the period, were printed in Sir H. Ellis's "Original Letters illustrative of English History," in Mr. Thomas Wright's "Queen Elizabeth and her Times," and in the notes to the memoir of Fleetwood in the Biographia Britannica; but as the evening was far advanced, Mr. Corner said he would not detain the Society by reading, at that time, the memoir of Fleetwood which he had prepared. He would, therefore, merely call the attention of the Society to a most interesting manuscript compiled by Fleetwood, and presented by him to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen on his resigning the office of Recorder July 31, 1576, as a perpetual token of his goodwill towards the city.

See also Serjeant Fleetwood's Itinerarium ad Windsor, in Particulars Respecting Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, by John Bruce, Esq., V.P.S.A.

It appears from Repertory 22, fo. 312 b, that Fleetwood resigned his office of Recorder on this day, but the certificate now before the Society is dated in 1589, and