12 GEOLOGICAL NOTES 



" It was resting on a bed (5ins. thick) of fine sandy silt- 

 mixed with fresh water shells. . . . The geological section 

 is as follows : — Soil, ift. : clay, 2ft. 6in. ; clay and gravel, mixed 

 with vegetable matter, ift. 3in. ; gravel, ift. 3in. ; sandy silt, 

 5in. ; gravel." 



I had the good fortune to see the canoe and the place at 

 which it was found, in the company of Messrs. W. and H. Cole, 

 and under the guidance of Mr. Traill, a few days after its dis- 

 covery. (See Frontispiece to present volume). Mr. Traill 

 remarks that the canoe seems to have been drawn up on 

 the bank of an old river. Probably it had been lying in the 

 shallow part of the old channel when a sudden flood had carried 

 it down and deposited it where it had become entangled in 

 vegetable debris, had sunk and become silted up. It may be 

 noticed that the section given by Mr. Traill much resembles 

 that near the disused channel in Fig. 5. As these ancient dug- 

 out canoes vary very much in size, it may be worth adding that 

 this one was 14ft. loin, long, 2ft. 4in. broad, and ift. 4in. deep, 

 taking the extreme measurements in each case. (Fig. 8.) 



Munro, in The Lake Dwellings of Europe, remarks that the 

 intimate association of these dug-out canoes with lake-dwellings 

 has been noted both in the British Isles and on the Continent. 

 He adds that their discovery in lakes and bogs has been con- 

 sidered by Dr. Stuart as an indication of the existence of cran- 

 nogs. Dr. Munro thinks that the period of greatest develop- 

 ment of the Scottish and Irish Lake-dwellings was during the 

 pre-Roman Iron Age, but points out that neither the use of 

 lake-dwellings nor that of dug-out canoes is necessarily pre- 

 historic. In the case of this Lea dug-out, Mr. Traill remarks 

 that " several pieces of Roman pottery and a well-made iron 

 spear-head have been found at points ranging from fifty to a 

 hundred yards from where the dug-out was lying, and in prac- 

 tically the same stratum." But this, though an interesting fact, 

 by no means — as we have seen — involves a similar antiquity for 

 the dug-out. 



Just as the Glacial Period doubtless came practically to an 

 end in South-Eastern Britain many centuries before the climate 

 had materially changed in Northern Scotland, so dug-out canoes 

 must have been in use in the wilder parts of the British Isles 

 long after they had become extinct on the Thames and Lea. 



