TRANSACTIONS OF THE 6ECTI0NS. 157 



On a Wooden Implement found in Bkhton Moss, near Birkenhead. 

 By Charles Ricketts, M.D., F.O.S. 



On ce^'tain remarkable Earthworks at Wainfleet, in Lincolnshire. 

 By the Eev. C. Sewell, M.A. 



These works consist of a series of mounds, about forty yards long and twelve feet 

 high, lying parallel to the sea front, which is now two miles from them, but which 

 in Roman times came close up to them. A Roman sea bank runs along then- face, 

 and appears to take its shfipe from the contour of their front. The Roman station 

 of Vanonia, according to Camden and Stuckley, lies about a mile to their rear. 

 Traces of these mounds can be discovered over a mile and a half of ground. At the 

 north and south ends they have been much mutilated. A central piece, about 300 

 yards lon^, remains entire. This block of mounds is divided into live separate groups, 

 the divisions between them being marked by narrow watercourses running at 

 right angles to the general direction of the mounds, and terminating in well-marked 

 regular depressions, which, on the supposition of this being the site of dwellings, 

 might have been freshwater-tanks. The mounds at this point extend backwards 

 from the ancient shore-line a space of 400 yards, standing, with little interval 

 between them, one behind the other, as many as twelve or fourteen in number. 



No traces of remains or human handiwork have been observed in these mounds, 

 though they are being constantly dug down and removed for one piu-pose or 

 another. They are composed of the soil on which they stand, though there is an 

 accoimt th<at some of them are of a black peaty soil, which, however, can be found 

 within a short distance. No mention has been made of these mounds either by 

 Camden or by Dugdale in his ' History of Draining,' which treats largely of this 

 neighbourhood ; but their antiquity is undoubted, if only on the evidence of their 

 local name — the Hilly Tofts. The popular account of their use is that they are the 

 remains of ancient salt-works, though the method by which salt was made upon 

 them by evaporation of sea-water is not very clearly made out. If this theoiy of 

 their use be the true one, they are interesting as being probably the source of supply 

 of salt to the Roman settlements all along the east of England. Another theoiy is 

 that the mounds are to be connected with the Danish invasions of England. It is a 

 plausible suggestion, but founded on no evidence, that the hollows between the 

 mounds were used as places to lay up the Danish ships while their crews made their 

 advance inland. The name Tofts points to some connexion with Danish occupiers ; 

 but if that name really indicates "an inhabited spot," the Danes, whether they 

 used the mounds as dry docks or not, may have found them occupied by human 

 dwellings. In spite, therefore, of all absence of remains, it is possible that we 

 have here the site of an ancient British fen-village, raised on mounds, as the 

 Swiss lake-dwellings were on piles, above the watery waste around them. 



On the Use of Opium among the Chinese. By G. Thin, M.D. 



The Mental Characteristics of the Australian Aborigines. 

 By C. Staniland "Wake, Dir. A.S.L. 



The chief inference to be drawn from the mental characters exhibited by the 

 aborigines of Australia is that they are children whose intellect has, by the 

 exigencies of their situation, been continually exercised, and therefore become more 

 than ordinarily keen and active, while the moral nature has remained almost 

 wholly in abeyance. From the data furnished by the paper, it is evident that the 

 Australian aborigines occupy the lowest position in the scale of humanity, and that 

 they show what must have been the condition of mankind in primeval times. 



The Physical Characters of the Austrcdian Aborigines. 

 By C. Staniland Wake, Dir. A.S.L. 

 The most striking peculiarities presented by the external physical characters of the 



