400 report — 1879. 



surface of the ground. It is less difficult to believe theni to be the work of the 

 large extinct anthropoid apes then living in France, than to view them as the work 

 of man. The cuts on the Meiocene fossil bones discovered in several other 

 localities in France may have been produced by other agencies than the hand of 

 man. 



Nor in the succeeding Pleiocene age is the evidence more convincing. The 

 human skull found in a railway cutting at Olmo, in Northern Italy, and supposed 

 to be of Pleiocene age, was associated with an implement, according to Mr. John 

 Evans, of Neolithic age. Some of the cut fossil bones discovered in various parts 

 of Lombardy, and considered by Professor Capellini to be Pleiocene, are un- 

 doubtedly produced by a cutting implement before they became mineralised, a 

 point on which the examination of the specimens leaves me no reason for doubt. 

 I do not, however, feel satisfied that the bones became mineralised in the Pleiocene 

 age, and the fact that only one species of quadruped now alive then dwelt in Italy, 

 renders it highly improbable that man was living at this time. This zoological 

 difficulty seems to me insuperable. 



The only other case winch demands notice is that which is taken to establish 

 the fact that man was living in the Interglacial age, in Switzerland. The speci- 

 mens supposed to offer ground for this hypothesis consist of a few pointed sticks in 

 Professor Riitimeyer's collection at Basle, of the shape and size of a rather thin 

 cigar, crossed by a series of fibres running at right angles. They appear to me, 

 after a careful examination, to present no mark of the hand of man, and to be 

 merely the resinous knots which have dropped out of a rotten pine-trunk, and survived 

 the destruction of the rest of the tree. As the evidence stands at present there is 

 no proof, on the Continent or in this country, of man having lived in this part of 

 the world before the middle stage of the Pleistocene age, when most of the living 

 mammalia were then alive, and when mammoths, rhinoceroses, bisons, horses, and 

 Irish elks, lions, hysenas, and bears haunted the neighbourhood of London, and 

 were swept down by the floods of the Thames as far as Erith and Crayford. 



3. On the Survival of the Neolithic Period at Brandon, Suffolk. 

 By Sydney B. J. Skertchly, F.G.S., H.M. Geological Survey. 



This paper embodies the results of the author's researches into the origin of the 

 gun-flint trade, still carried on at Brandon, in Suffolk. From Palaeolithic times to 

 the present day this locality has been renowned for the excellent quality of its flint, 

 and during the Neolithic period flint was regularly mined for, just as it is at present. 

 A careful study of the methods of mining, modes of working flint, of the tools used, 

 and the implements made by the Neolithic and modern people reveals so many 

 singular coincidences that the conclusion is drawn that the working of flint must 

 have been carried on uninterruptedly in the vicinity of Brandon since Neolithic times. 

 This opinion is further strengthened by the absence of the similarities in question 

 from those gun-flint centres which are known to be of modern origin. The peculiar 

 phraseology of the Brandon flint-knappers is also pointed out, and the suggestion 

 made that some of these words may possibly prove to be of pre- Aryan stock. 



The points of similarity between the ancient and modern arts are briefly as 

 follows : — 



1. Mining. — At Brandon flint is still mined for in a very primitive manner 

 In the neighbourhood the remains of extensive Neolithic flint mines, known as 

 Grime's Graves, are still extant, and a plan of one of these is like a bad drawing of 

 a modern pit. There are also numerous old pits, whose age is unknown, but is 

 certainly newer than Neolithic times, and they are sufficient in number to bridge 

 over the interval between Neolithic and historic times. Moreover, those pits which 

 are known to have been independently started about the time of the introduction of 

 flint-locks, are, in other places, worked upon modern, and not ancient plans. 



2. Mining Tools. — A very singular one-sided pick is used by the Brandon flint- 



