July 14, 192 1] 



NATURE 



62 



Avorse fate than the ostrich, and merely fails to leave 

 the ground. A. R. Low. 



The Librar}-, Air Ministry , 



Kingsway, VV.C.2, July i. 



A Prehistoric Cooking-place in Norfolk. 



Collectors of Stone-age implements are well 

 acquainted with the calcined flints known as pot- 

 boilers, which are found sparsely strewn over the 

 sites of most prehistoric settlements. As the sun- 

 baked pottery of the kitchen utensil would not stand 

 the fire, heated flints were thrown into the vessel to 

 bring the water to the boil. 



My attention having been directed by Mr. Baldry, 

 of Cranwich, to a mound in Buckenham Tofts Park, 

 Norfolk, where the moles were throwing out a 

 remarkable number of these |X>t-boilers, with the 

 kind permission of the owner, Mr. Underdown, I 

 started excavations on the spot in May last with the 

 view of discovering their origin. 



Owing to numerous springs taking their rise at a 

 somewhat high level in the park, the old chalk land 

 surface has been carved out by water action into a 

 series of large natural folds, which at first sight might 

 appear artificial. On one of these, where the burnt 

 stones are found in great profusion, we commenced 

 operations, running a trench from the west side up 

 the slope, a distance of 66 ft., and another near 

 the starting-point at right angles to it. About 8 ft. 

 from the base of the fold, and in close proximity 

 to a stream, on removing about 3 in. of surface- 

 grass and mould, we at once came upon a com- 

 pact mass of pot-boilers. These continued to a 

 ■depth of i\ ft., resting upon blackened earth, which 

 when dug through was found to be lying on the 

 chalk. Tracing the calcined stones from the base of 

 the mound upwards, many thousands came to light, 

 ever decreasing in numbers as they approached the 

 summit, as though thrown out from the spot on 

 which they had been used. 



The finding of remains of what appeared to be a 

 great communal kitchen was extremely puzzling, and 

 only when I got into communication with Mr. 

 Cantrill, of the Jermyn Street Museum, did a possible 

 •clue present itself. Mr. Cantrill had published in 

 Arch. Camhrensis accounts of his investigations of 

 similar stone-boiling sites in Wales. His papers also 

 refer to quite a number of these prehistoric cooking- 

 places, known as "deer roasts " or "giants' cinders," 

 In Ireland, and I am now informed by Mr. Crawford 

 that they are not unknown in Scotland. In Eng- 

 land, Mr. Cantrill tells me, they have never yet been 

 examined. 



These accumulations are supposed to have been 

 the large cooking-hearths where the flesh of the red 

 deer or other big game was boiled. The finding of 

 hollowed tree-trunks in some of these mounds in 

 Ireland suggests that a trough of this kind was some- 

 times used to contain the water. Mr. Cantrill sug- 

 gests that another alternative would have been ^ to 

 dig a hole in the chalk and line it with a raw hide 

 to serve as a cooking vessel. To boil such a great 

 amount of water heated stones in large quantities 

 would have been ladled into the vessel. 



So far no satisfactory evidence as to the date of 

 these places appears to have been forthcoming. A 

 general opinion, however, seems to prevail that they 

 are of Neolithic origin. This view may be sub- 

 stantiated by our finding among the pot-boilers 

 quite a number of humanly struck flint flakes show- 

 ing bulbs of percussion. Still more interesting was 

 the discovery of what appears to have been a small 

 circular pit dwelling within a few yards of the heap 

 of pot-boilers. It measured 11 ft. in diameter. Open- 

 ing this out, we came upon a hearth of quite normal 



NO. 2698, VOL. 107] 



appearance — flints reddened by the fire, with a few 

 pot-boilers strewn about, and an area of blackened 

 earth. Here it was evident that some individual had 

 sat and fashioned his flint tools, for flakes lay about 

 in profusion, with spalls and a fine core. A scraper 

 of unusual form, but strongly reminiscent of some of 

 those found at Whitepark Bay, in Ireland, lay among 

 flint knives and other small tools, while an arrow- 

 point, worked on both sides and with one barb 

 already punched out, may possibly by its workman- 

 ship give the required date to these mysterious sites. 

 Further examination of the Buckenhani Tofts mound 

 will, it is hoped, be made in the near future under 

 the auspices of the Percy Sladen Trust. 



Nina F. Layard. 



Science and Civilisation. 



May I venture, as a citizen, to make an appeal to 

 men of science and to urge that the time has come 

 when they should no longer stand aside from the social 

 and political questions that vex the world? Science is 

 itself dependent up>on favourable social conditions : 

 that these conditions can abruptly cease has been 

 clearly shown in the case of Russia. Scientific 

 workers have therefore the strongest class interest in 

 the social conditions under which they live. They 

 have, however, more than a class interest. Science 

 has made civilisation possible for mankind. It must 

 now provide civilisation with that authority the lack 

 of which is causing' such waste of human energy to-day. 

 Men of science alone have the power ; they alone are 

 above suspicion. 



This is no place for details. An international amal- 

 gamation of existing scientific organisations would 

 provide the world with an intellectual aristocracy, inde- 

 pendent of the vote, which by the development of 

 knowledge and the control of new weapons, lethal 

 and industrial, would soon acquire the necessary in- 

 fluence. B. J. Mardex. 



Stodham Park, Liss, Hampshire, June 30. 



Measurement of Small inductance. 



The method of suspending a loop of wire in a 

 uniform alternating- magnetic field, as used by 

 Fleming and Elihu Thomson for the construction of 

 A.C. galvanometers, can be applied with advantage to 

 determine the self-inductance of loops in absolute 

 measure, and it would seem that we can go con- 

 siderably lower in this way than can conveniently be 

 done otherwise. Low-frequency measurements are 

 inaccurate, but with a triode at wireless frequencies I 

 have measured inductances from 20 cm. to 50,000 cm. 

 with an average error of i^ per cent, without special 

 precautions to obtain sensitiveness. The details of 

 the experiment will appear shortly in the Philosophical 

 Magazine. F. B. Pidduck. 



Queen's College, Oxford, July 2. 



A New Acoustical Phenomenon. 



The phenomenon described by Dr. Erskine-Murray 

 in a letter under the above heading in Nature of 

 June 16 (p. 490) is particularly well heard when one is 

 standing near a cliff or rock-face and listening to the 

 sound of a waterfall or of the waves breaking on the 

 seashore. The phenomenon is, of course, familiar to 

 physicists, but It may not be so well known that use 

 can be, and indeed often is, made of this effect in 

 avoiding obstacles when one is walking in the dark. 

 No doubt blind men, consciously or unconsciously, 

 use it in this wav ; and it must have been so used 

 from remotest antiquity by man and any other animals 

 which happened to have the necessary discriminating 

 power In hearing. G. A. Shakespear. 



The University, Birmingham, July 8. 



