Linnaan Society. 365 



in the British Museum, was first shown in London at the Egyptian 

 Hall, its exhibitor asserted that Indian arrow-heads were found 

 among the diluvian bones. 



We are anxious to call the attention of British geologists to this 

 subject, in order that we may concur in the pursuit with our French 

 neighbours, and under the impression that our own valleys and beds 

 of diluvian gravel will supply evidence of the same kind. Mr. 

 Wetherell of Highgate has a most beautifully formed and perfect 

 spear-head of flint, which was lately found by the workmen employed 

 in the parish of Hornsey on the Great Northern Railway, The ac- 

 count given of it was, that it was found in a bed of gravel 3 or 4 

 feet below the surface. How came it there ? Many will say, that 

 after being placed on the surface of the ground, it had in the course 

 of ages worked its way downwards. We do not think such a change 

 of position possible. Not even a pebble could have travelled that 

 short journey, much less a long, thin, finely- wrought instrument, 

 with sharp edges. Wherever it was originally laid in the gravel, 

 there it must have rested for hundreds, nay thousands of years. We 

 ought therefore rather to suppose that, when that part of Hornsey 

 was a river-bed, perhaps 3000 years ago, a fisherman lost his spear, 

 and after the wintry floods had covered it with a load of gravel 

 brought down from the higher land, the wooden shaft and its 

 fastenings of cord or leather underwent decay, and were dissipated, 

 whilst the stone was preserved in its original state. But by further 

 attention we shall probably discover in the British Isles not only 

 those finished productions, which our antiquaries have hitherto col- 

 lected, but weapons and tools of a more primitive form, in an un- 

 finished state, and in all the stages of progress from the original 

 fragments of rock to the polished Celt ; and it is by pursuing these 

 researches, as M. Boucher de Perthes has done, that we may carry 

 back British history to its earliest date, and re-establish the old title, 

 " Homo Diluvii Testis."— J. Y. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



LINN^AN SOCIETY. 



February 6, 1849.— E. Forster, Esq., V.P., in the Chair. 



A series of specimens of the natural order Cycadece was exhiliited, 

 and a portion of them presented to the Society, by James Yates, Esq. 

 F.R.S., F.L.S. &c. 



In his catalogue of these specimens Mr. Yates followed the ar- 

 rangement and adopted the names of Miquel in his ' Monographia 

 Cycadearura,' 1842, and of Brongniart in the 'Ann. des Sc. Natu- 

 relles,' s^r. 3. tome 5, 1846. 



In the course of his communication the author oflTered the follow-- 

 ing remarks : — 



Genus Cycas. 



Cycas revoluta. — Since the year 1799, when a female plant of this 



