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PROMINENT YORKSHIRE WORKERS: 
V.—JOHN ROBERT MORTIMER. 
(PLATE XIII. ). 
DuRING the past half-century there have been numerous 
workers who have contributed largely to our knowledge of 
English prehistoric archeology. Amongst these are such well- 
known names as Bateman, Evans, Dawkins, Lubbock (now Lord 
Avebury), Pitt-Rivers, Greenwell and Mortimer. To these 
writers our literature is indebted for much. ‘Ten Years’ 
Diggings’; ‘Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain’; a 
similar volume on ‘ Ancient Bronze Implements’ ; ‘ Cave Hunt- 
ing’; ‘Early Man in Britain’; ‘Prehistoric Europe’; ‘ Ex- 
cavations in Cranbourne Chase,’ etc. ; ‘ British Barrows,’ and 
‘Forty Years’ Researches in British, etc., Burial Mounds.’ 
Few countries can shew so extensive, and none can produce so 
sound, a series. 
The most recent, and perhaps the most lavishly illustrated 
volume, is by a Yorkshireman, who has spent his life in in- 
vestigating the geology, and, more particularly, the prehistoric 
archeology, of his native county. We refer to Mr. J. R. Mor- 
timer, formerly of Fimber, now of Driffield. 
Mr. Mortimer, who in former years had the assistance of 
his brother, the late Robert Mortimer, is a strong advocate 
of local museums and local scientific societies. And he has 
confined the area of his own life’s work to that section of the 
Yorkshire Wolds that les within a few miles from Driffield, 
and his extensive private museum of geological and archzo- 
logical specimens at Driffield deserves the title ‘local’ probably 
more than does any other museum in the country. 
Eleven years ago the present writer had the privilege of 
preparing a catalogue of the specimens in the Driffield museum, 
a work which impressed him very forcibly with the magnitude 
of Mr. Mortimer’s researches. It was then that he first saw a 
hugh trunk full of manuscripts containing the notes of his 
barrow-openings, etc. A few years later, and Mr. Mortimer’s 
‘Forty Years’ Researches’ appeared, from the same press as 
this journal. 
It was the great Exhibition of 1851 which did so much good 
i sO many ways, that first gave Mr. Mortimer a taste for 
scientific enquiry. Later, he saw the collections of fossils and 
flint implements formed by the late Edward Tindall, of Brid- 
lington. His first ammonite was bought from Tindall. 
For ten or twelve years the brothers Mortimer had the field 
almost to themselves, George Pycock of Malton and Tindall 
being practically their only rivals. The farm hands were 
trained to collect flint arrow-heads, etc., and leaflets were 
distributed offering prizes for the greatest number of imple- 
Naturalist, 
