i894. NOTES FROM. THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 217 



methods of registering criminals. He expressed complete agreement 

 with their recommendation of a modification of the French system of 

 measurements, with the addition of Galton's " finger-print " method. 



The Antiquity of Man. 



It is interesting to watch the gradual change of opinion as to 

 the antiquity of the human race, and to compare what is said at 

 Oxford in 1894 with discussions of the same question at former 

 meetings of the British Association. At one time the debate was 

 largely one for theologians to take part in, and personalities were 

 freely used ; now a joint meeting of the anthropologists and the 

 geologists to discuss the Plateau Flint Implements of North Kent 

 leads to a thoroughly scientific and calm review of the whole ques- 

 tion. It was unfortunate that age and illness should have prevented 

 the Nestor of our geologists, Professor Prestwich, from taking part 

 in so interesting a debate, and it was unfortunate also that Mr. W. J. L. 

 Abbott, who has done so much good work in the Plateau Gravels of 

 recent years, and whose interesting paper on this very subject will be 

 remembered by our readers, should also have been too unwell to 

 attend ; otherwise nearly all the leading authorities took part in the 

 debate. 



Professor T. R. Jones opened the discussion on behalf of Pro- 

 fessor Prestwich, maintaining his well-known views as to the vast 

 antiquity of the rude implements found on the higher plateaus. 

 Mr. Whitaker doubted whether many of the supposed implements 

 exhibited at the meeting were really of artificial origin, but acknow- 

 ledged that some were certainly genuine. Most of these had been 

 picked up on the surface, not dug out of undisturbed gravels. 

 He questioned whether the discovery of implements in the " clay 

 with flints " was any evidence of age, for the clay with flints 

 was still in process of formation. Mr. Montgomerie Bell thought 

 that he could trace a continuously improving series of implements 

 in the different deposits of Kent, but Sir John Evans doubted whether 

 Kent was really the cradle of the human race. 



Dr. Hicks spoke of the relation of the implement-bearing 

 gravels of Middlesex to the glacial and cave-deposits of North Wales, 

 and insisted that man was pre-Glacial. Professor Boyd Dawkins 

 pointed out that rude workmanship was no satisfactory evidence of 

 antiquity, as rough or finished implements would be used according 

 to the purpose for which they were required. General Pitt-Rivers 

 spoke on the gradual evolution of implements of different types. He 

 did not consider the mere occurrence of a bulb of percussion as 

 sufficient evidence of artificial origin, and doubted the value of the 

 evidence as to the implements having been found in place in the 

 plateau deposits. Mr. Clement Reid questioned the extreme antiquity 

 of the implements, pointing out that careful search had led to no dis- 

 coveries in undoubted Pliocene and pre-Glacial deposits. Colonel 



