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to invite their lady friends to attend a soirée, to admire various 
beautiful objects which could be seen under the microscope, as 
well as curiosities and specimens that were lent them for exhibition. 
Soon afterwards they saw their way clearly to occupy wider ground, 
and they altered the Club so that it might take up its position as 
the Natural History Club of this district of Surrey. They felt also 
that it was right that they should utilize their funds for the 
advantage of their present members, as well as keep a prudent 
balance for proper contingencies, and whilst accumulating a library 
of books, and a cabinet of objects, they found themselves in a 
position to extend their invitations to the spring as well as the 
autumn season, and listen to a first-class lecture by a first-class 
man. Their first lecture was given by Professor Morris, on ‘‘ The 
Geology of Croydon.’’ He ventured to say that the lecture was 
one which would be an honour to any society, and that it would 
take its place in the literature of this country as long as time should 
last. It seemed to him that the lecture Professor Jones was about 
to deliver would be a fitting sequel to the lecture of his predecessor, 
and that after hearing Professor John Morris deliver his masterly 
address on the physical changes which had taken place on the earth, 
they might very well ask Professor Rupert Jones, who was equally 
well known, to be kind enough to come there and tell them what 
science had proved with respect to the first appearance of man 
upon the globe, and those who were the former inhabitants of our 
_ country. He then formally introduced Professor Jones to the 
; audience. 
.PRroFEssor Jonzs introduced his subject by reminding his hearers 
that antiquaries can trace back the successive periods of govern- 
ments and dynasties by the relics and ruins beneath London, from 
the Georgian to the Roman age. He referred to Colonel Lane Fox's 
discovery of the old pile-village of the Romano-British period in 
the Finsbury Marsh, and to the indications of still older aboriginal 
wattled huts in pit dwellings on the gravel subsoil beneath Paul’s 
Cross, in Cheapside. The fossil contents of this gravel, under 
_ various parts of London, lead us further back in time beyond the 
historic and pre-historic ages to what geologists termed the 
Pleistocene period, when the Thames, much wider than now, formed 
great shoals of gravelly shingle and wide-spread flats of loamy 
_ flood-mud, and drifted away the carcases of mammoth, rhinoceros, 
lion, urus, musk ox, and other animals now strange to the district. 
The relics of man, such as implements of stone, were found here 
and therg, with the bones of these Pleistocene animals in the valley 
_ gravels of the Thames and its tributaries ; also in similar gravels 
in neighbouring valleys, both in England and France, and in 
the caves of limestone districts, where similar conditions existed. 
_ The subsequent decrease of the river, leaving its margin of gravel 
and loam, and the ultimate coating of peat over the marshy flats 
