48 Mr. W. F. Stanley on an Example 
dwelling. The possession of bronze tools made it possible to 
work timber into the requisite forms of beams and rafters, and flat 
walls and gabled roofs took the place of rounded walls constructed 
of interwoven branches and wicker-work of the earlier period. 
Our modern houses, in which timber was once largely used for 
the outlines, and is still generally used for roofing, may be re- 
garded as the direct descendants, with various modifications, 
improvements and developments, of the bronze-age hut. 
The recent discoveries at Waddon are of considerable local 
value on account of the information they give us of Croydon in 
prehistoric times, but they have something more than local im- 
portance. They furnish a material contribution to the knowledge 
already possessed by anthropologists and archeologists as to the 
modes of life of prehistoric man, and they supply evidence of 
great importance as to what were probably his very earliest 
efforts in house construction. 
5.—EHXAMPLE OF A PERFECT Fiint IMPLEMENT, SUPPOSED TO BE 
oF THE Periop or THE First Dynasty or Eeypr; anp oF 
TWO EARLY Mirrors IN CoPpPER, FOUND IN RECENT E)xcava- 
TIONS AT ABYDOS. 
By Wm. F. Sranuey, F.G.S. 
(Read November 18th, 1902.) 
Tue great valley of the Nile is in every sense eminently 
adapted to preserve records of very remote periods of human 
existence. This is commonly recognized by its being spoken of 
as the ‘‘cradle of our race.” For this assertion there are no 
doubt physical as well as historical reasons, among the most 
striking of which is the isolation of fertile plains, in desert land, 
upon the bank of the great highway that the river forms in the 
four thousand miles from its sources to its mouths in the Medi- 
terranean and Red Seas. For more than two thousand miles 
this mighty river has cut out its course through arid sandy 
deserts, and in this long run there are only three alluvial plains 
of considerable extent upon its banks suitable for agriculture— 
Thebes, Abydos, and Cairo. That these larger areas utilized for 
cultivation have left records to our times is largely due to the 
great Libyan desert entirely backing them up, and protecting 
them from depredations. Thus we find that temples that were 
built upon the fertile land have for the most part entirely or 
nearly disappeared to clear the land for cultivation, whereas 
