Journal of Proceedings. xxxiii 



but it would be of course necessary in the first place to obtain per- 

 mission from the Forest Conservators. He would therefore propose that 

 the matter should be put in hand at once, and that an official letter on 

 the part of the Club should be addressed to the Epping Forest Com- 

 mittee, after which — supposing, as he was led to anticipate, that the 

 required permission should be granted — circulars should be sent round 

 to all the members in order to raise the requisite funds. 



This proposal was received with acclamation. 



The President then entered upon the results of the afternoon's 

 excursion. He stated that the Ilford Pits which they had visited were 

 of world-wide celebrity in the annals of Post-Glacial Geology. The 

 brick-earth, gravel, &c., of which sections were there exposed, were 

 deposited at a time when the old Thames was a gigantic stream, and 

 when the Mammoth and other great mammals were denizens of this 

 country. It added greatly to the interest of the remains from these 

 pits to know that the animals of that period were contemporaneous 

 with Palaeolithic man. The past had there " buried its dead," but the 

 past was not a " dead past." Their worthy and esteemed member, Sir 

 Antonio Brady, had acted the part of resurrectionist, and by a skilful 

 process of " body-snatching," described in full at one of their previous 

 meetings, had succeeded in exhuming and preserving these great 

 mammals for the instruction of modern and future geologists. In 

 addition to their conductors. Sir Antonio Brady and Mr. Henry 

 Walker, the President said that they were honoured that afternoon by 

 the presence of a Naturalist of European reputation, his friend Mr. 

 Alfred R. Wallace ; and they also had amongst them Mr. Worthington 

 Smith, who had recently acquired celebrity as a discoverer of Palaeo- 

 lithic implements. He had much pleasure in calling upon their 

 esteemed conductors and the eminent naturalists he had named to 

 favour the meeting with their remarks. 



Sir Antonio Brady, whose name was received with much enthusiasm, 

 said that, although suffering from a severe cold which had prevented 

 him from making any extended remarks at the pit, it gave him much 

 pleasure to be present, and have an opportunity of listening to the 

 observations of some of the gentlemen he saw around him. Sir Antonio 

 brought up with him specimens of stone implements and carved bones 

 from his extensive collection, which he considered to be of special 

 .value and interest in reference to the question of the antiquity of man. 

 These included a portion of a horn of Reindeer, with a carved profile 

 of a man's face, found in a Glacial Drift. He considered it to be the 

 oldest work of art known, and to his mind it was an evidence of the 

 existence of Palaeolithic man in the Glacial age. Also a carved figure 

 presenting a human face when examined in front, and the representa- 

 tion of a bird or beast when viewed sideways ; this he took to be one 

 of the Penates of these ancient men. He also exhibited a Flint Spear- 



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