Sir Arthur Smith Woodward 271 



Heathfield, in Sussex. Dawson was a remarkable man ; 

 when only twelve years old he had already started a 

 collection and was spending all his pocket-money on the 

 purchase of fossils from the quarrymen at Hastings. The 

 hours which most boys give to games he devoted to 

 tracing out fossil footprints of the giant reptiles which 

 once inhabited England, and to digging out their bones 

 and piecing them together. 



Great fish, tiny shells, and delicate fossil ferns — all 

 were collected by this enthusiastic youngster. By 1884 

 his collection had already grown too large for any private 

 house, and he offered it to the British Museum. His 

 friends had looked on the whole thing as a mere boyish 

 pastime, and they were greatly surprised to see experts 

 from the British Museum spending whole days in care- 

 fully packing the specimens for their safe journey to 

 London. The national museum was only too glad to have 

 the Dawson collection in exchange for its original cost. 



Thenceforth for many years Dawson continued to 

 spend all his leisure in collecting fossils, and he came to 

 know the South Downs and their treasures as perhaps no 

 other Englishman has ever known them. In 1897 he 

 announced to the Geological Society his discovery of 

 natural gas in Sussex. The flow continues, and natural 

 gas still lights the railway-station and hotel at Heath- 

 field. Dawson discovered a Roman pile at Pevensey, 

 identifying the place with the Anderida of the Romans, 

 and he has written on Bronze Age bracelets, the Lavant 

 caves, on Sussex iron-work, and many similar subjects. 



Finally it was this same enthusiastic amateur who dis- 

 covered the remains of Britain's oldest known inhabi- 

 tant. The find was made in the gravel of a river which 

 has long since ceased to flow. In fact it is so long since 

 it flowed that the whole face of the country has changed 

 and now there is no river near. In the bed of this long- 

 lost stream was a deposit of gravel which had evidently 



