132 REPORTS ON THE STATE OP SCIENCE. 



workmen through a screen under the supervision of Mr. H. G. Featherby 

 and myself. It was then dug all over to the full depth of a shovel 

 without finding the slightest trace of anything that could be associated 

 with a modern horse. A considerable addition was made, however, to 

 previous prehistoric ' finds, ' and a Holocene molluscan fauna was 

 discovered in the bog silt. The silt was in places strewn with shelly 

 debris, and it was only with the greatest care that complete specimens 

 could be secured for identification. Of these the following have been 

 yC identified by Mr. B. B. Woodward, F.G.S., of the British Museum 

 (Nat. Hist.) : Helix nemoralis, Hygromia (Helix) hispida, Vitrcea 

 nitidula, Succinea putris, Pyramidula rotundata, Helix arbustorum. 

 Clausilia bidentata was, I think, also found, but unfortunately got 

 crushed at the museum before it was identified. A small bivalve was 

 fairly frequently met with, which I have identified at the Jermyn 

 Street Museum as Pisidium. 



Of the fossil shells mentioned above it may be pointed out that six 

 at least of them have been noted in the Holocene deposits at Staines * ; 

 six have been described from the Barnwell Gravels 2 ; and three are 

 described by Von Hauer as characteristic of the diluvial loess of the 

 Rhine and the Danube. 3 



Reasoning from the geological data, the writer of this report was 

 led at an early stage of the investigation to conclude that the formation 

 of this bog must have taken place in early post-glacial times : that 

 inference seems to be confirmed by the palasontological evidence. 



In the paper read last year before Section C 4 palaeolithic and 

 neolithic flint implements and ' cores,' fragments of baking-tiles, frag- 

 ments of pottery (neolithic and bronze periods), primitive bricks moulded 

 with human hands, an ingot of crude bronze, fragments of charcoal, 

 and a variety of erratic boulders are enumerated. These were recovered 

 by turning over the materials which had been wheeled out of the pond- 

 basin, together with several missing small bones of the skeleton. The 

 tile-fragments and mammalian bone-fragments are numerous ; a caudal 

 vertebra of Bos, and a few molars of Bos and Equus were also found; 

 and the vegetable contents of the beast's paunch,' reduced to a state 

 of peat (one cake of it strongly stained with phosphate of iron), partly 

 within, partly without, the trunk of the skeleton, the skeleton having 

 as a whole been deformed and the vertebral column thrown into a curve 

 by the invasion of the bog by a later landslide on the side where the 

 feet lay. 



Owing to the adverse weather of the early spring and the indifferent 

 health of the Secretary nothing further was attempted; and when the 

 fine weather set in time was lost through the difficulty of obtaining 

 the services of the specially experienced workman who excavated the 

 pond-basin. Little progress, therefore, has been made, but the results 

 obtained have added to our knowledge, and go to confirm the in- 

 ferences which had been drawn from the facts previously known. 



1 See Kennard and Woodward (P.G.A.), vol. xix. (p. 252 fi.). 



2 B. B. Woodward, ibid., vol. x. (p. 356 ff.). 



3 See Die Geologie (Holder, B.A., Wien), by F. Ritter von Hauer (p. 696). 



4 Brit. Assoc. Reports, 1910, p. 616. 



