io 4 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of alder in abundance, of hazel and yew, as well as by that of numer- 

 ous flowering plants indicative of a temperate climate very different 

 from that under which the bowlder clay itself was formed. Above 

 these beds, characterized by temperate plants, comes a thick and 

 more recent series of strata, in which leaves of the dwarf arctic 

 willow and birch abound, and which were in all probability de- 

 posited under conditions like those of the cold regions of Siberia 

 and North America. At a higher level and of more recent date 

 than these from which they are entirely distinct are the beds 

 containing palaeolithic implements, formed in all probability under 

 conditions not essentially different from those of the present day. 

 However this may be, we have now conclusive evidence that the 

 palaeolithic implements are, in the eastern counties of England, of 

 a date long posterior to that of the great chalky bowlder clay. 



It may be said, and said truly, that the implements at Hoxne 

 can not be shown to belong to the beginning rather than to some 

 later stage of the palaeolithic period. The changes, however, that 

 have taken place at Hoxne in the surface configuration of the coun- 

 try prove that the beds containing the implements can not belong 

 to the close of that period. It must, moreover, be remembered that 

 in what are probably the earliest of the palaeolithic deposits of the 

 eastern counties, those at the highest level, near Brandon in Norfolk, 

 where the gravels contain the largest proportion of pebbles derived 

 from glacial beds, some of the implements themselves have been 

 manufactured from materials not native to the spot, but brought 

 from a distance, and derived in all probability either from the 

 bowlder clay or from some of the beds associated with it. We must, 

 however, take a wider view of the whole question, for it must not 

 for a moment be supposed that there are the slightest grounds for 

 believing that the civilization, such as it was, of the palaeolithic 

 period originated in the British Isles. We find in other countries 

 implements so identical in form and character with British specimens 

 that they might have been manufactured by the same hands. These 

 occur over large areas in France under similar conditions to those 

 that prevail in England. The same forms have been discovered in 

 the ancient river gravels of Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Some few 

 have been recorded from the north of Africa, and analogous types 

 occur in considerable numbers in the south of that continent. On 

 the banks of the Nile, many hundreds of feet above its present level, 

 implements of the European types have been discovered; while in 

 Somaliland, in an ancient river valley at a great elevation above the 

 sea, Mr. Seton-Karr has collected a large number of implements 

 formed of flint and quartzite, which, judging from their form and 

 character, might have been dug out of the drift deposits of the 



