20 PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



picks, &c., were also discovered and will be more fully ex- 

 cavated this year. There have been lately at least three 

 instances of the discovery of very ancient human remains, 

 of which two, found in the Dordogne, were whole skeletons, 

 the first ever obtained of that date, other finds having been 

 only of portions of the skeleton, chiefly skulls. What is said 

 to be the earliest known human bone was found near Heidel- 

 berg about 80 feet deep in a stratum of sand, and consists only 

 of a lower jaw with its teeth intact. These teeth are such as 

 might be found in a skull of the present day, but the absence of 

 chin, the general thickness, and other features proclaim an 

 early origin. Worked flints are said to have been found 

 beneath the glacial boulder clay in Suffolk, but it is very 

 desirable that the existence of man at that early epoch should 

 rest on some more substantial evidence than these eoliths, 

 the apparent rough workings on which are, in the opinion of 

 many, due to natural causes and not in any way to human 

 action. What is said to be the earliest human figure has 

 been unearthed near Ratibor, in Silesia, in a stone age dwel- 

 ling. It is made of clay and represents a female divinity. 

 Some ancient pit dwellings have been found at Holderness, 

 a prehistoric horse of about 14 hands, perhaps of neolithic 

 times, at Bishop's Stortford, and the Hull Museum has lately 

 become the fortunate possessor of the largest known specimen 

 of a prehistoric boat, 48 feet long, made out of a trunk of oak 

 and found in Lincolnshire in 1886. A report has been issued 

 by the University of California on 425 of the shell mounds 

 found in San Francisco Bay, the stone implements being 

 neolithic in style, and the mounds having served as burial 

 places, quantities of human bones are found in them. It seems 

 probable that their makers were of the race of the present 

 day Indians of that country. More rock engravings have been 

 found in South Africa. They are chiefly of animals, and appar- 

 ently much more elaborate in execution than the European 

 palaeolithic engravings and in higher relief. Their age seems 

 uncertain. In a burial near Thebes of the 17th dynasty 

 were found some string nets of fine workmanship, of very 



