Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ivii. ( 1 9 1 3 ), No. %. 1 7 



probability that the next specimen of the same type 

 should also be a complete skeleton is so minute as to be 

 negligible ; yet in face of this extreme improbability we 

 are asked to believe that the first two occurrences of man 

 in British Pleistocene gravels should both be complete or 

 essentiall)' complete skeletons. The mistake made b\' 

 the finders of these skeletons is in presuming that they 

 aie of the same age as the gravels in which they were 

 found. What is the evidence? 



The Galley Hill skeleton was not seen /// situ by an\' 

 scientific man ; in fact, not seen by any geologist till 

 several )-ears after its discover}-. Two witnesses of no 

 geological training saj- that the beds of gravel above 

 were undisturbed. One of them says, " I was struck by 

 the undisturbed condition of the gravel in which it was 

 embedded." The other declares that it " projected from 

 a matrix of clayey loam and sand." On the evidence of 

 these two witnesses, who contradict one another on a 

 point so fundamental as the character of the surrounding 

 matrix, we are asked to believe that the gravel above was 

 undisturbed, a point alwa\-s ver\' difficult to establish. 

 ,As a matter of fact, the bones are of a deep brownish 

 grey colour, supporting the view of the witness who said 

 that they lay in clayey loam and entirely different from 

 what we should expect if they had been preserved in the 

 ordinary red brown gravel. 



The Ipswich skeleton was found and very carefully 

 excavated by Mr. Reid Moir, so that the evidence in its 

 favour is more satisfactory than that of the Galle}' Hill 

 man. It lay apparently in a compact mass at the junction 

 of some sands and overlying boulder clay, embedded partly 

 in each. Does Mr. Reid Moir seriousl)- mean to contend 

 that so fragile a thing as a human skeleton could remain 

 closely articulated and unbroken whilst the glacier which 



