652 REFORT— 1894. 



The ultimate denudation of the Talleys cutting off the Chalk from the Weald 

 being subsequent to the formation and removal of that gravel, the latter must have 

 been Pre-glacial in age. 



(b) On the Age of the Plateau Beds. By W. "Whitakee, F.R.S., F.G.S. 



Mr. Whitaker said that the flints exhibited might be divided into two classes, the 

 few that would be allowed by every qualified observer to be the work of mau and 

 the many as to the authenticity of which judgment should be deferred. He then 

 alluded to the two points of view from which the subject was approached, the 

 anthropological and the geological. In the former the work of man was the 

 starting point ; but, as a geologist, he thought that Nature should be duly con- 

 sidered, and the varied way in which she worked, sometimes leading to results 

 that were somewhat unexpected. The district in question, too, was of a double 

 character. In the first place, we had to do with a tract, south of the Chalk range, 

 over which there were in parts beds of gravel, sometimes along the courses of the 

 stream-valleys, but sometimes having no connection with the present drainage- 

 system. In the latter case the composition and position of the gravel seemed to 

 point to a time when the features of the country were not the same as now, when 

 the streams ran in different courses, and when the Chalk escarpment and other 

 similar ranges of hill reached further south than now. He pointed out that the 

 district was at and near the watershed between the Medway and the Darent, and 

 that in such a position alterations in the flow of streams could be brought about 

 by smaller causes than lower down along the river-valleys. The other part of the 

 district was along and north of the great Chalk range, and the deposit here mostly 

 met with over the Chalk could not properly be called Drift ; it had not been brought 

 into its present position from elsewhere by sea, river, or ice, but had grown where 

 it stood ; it was a residuum, the matter left from long-continued gradual dissolu- 

 tion of the chalk and the leaving behind of its flints and other insoluble matter, 

 to which was added a mass of loam, resulting presumably from the remains of old 

 Tertiary beds. "With regard to the gi-avels, flint implements of undoubted work- 

 manship having been found in them, it must be conceded that man existed at the 

 time of the deposition of those gravels. This certainly carried man back, locally 

 at all events, beyond the time of the river gravels, which occur in the bottoms and 

 along the slopes of the valleys. He could not admit, however, that there was any 

 good evidence to connect these ancient men with Pre-glacial or even with Glacial 

 times, as there were no deposits of undoubted Glacial age in or near the district. 

 Over the Clay-with-flints of the Chalk tract many implements had been found, but 

 these were on the surface, and therefore we had no evidence of their age other 

 than that given by their form. He understood that it had been said that a very 

 few implements had been found in the Clay ; but even were it so we should be 

 little wiser as to their age, the formation of this clay having continued over a long 

 time, right down to the present day. Elsewhere implements had been found in a 

 brickearth that was associated with the Clay-with-flints ; but in this case we were 

 still ignorant of the age of the deposit, no other bed having been found above. 

 He thought that in such a matter great caution was needed lest observers should 

 be carried away by their zeal in discovery, and that the right spirit was to approach 

 the question with wholesome doubt, contesting the views of those whose faith led 

 them to believe very ordinary-looking chippings to be the work of design, so that 

 they should have to prove that the balance of probabilities was in favour of their 

 view. 



The following Papers and Report were read : — 



2. On the Traces of Two Rivers helonging to Tertiary Time in the Inner- 

 Hebrides. By Sir Aechibald Geikie, F.R.S. 



Many years ago the author had described part of the course of a stream which 

 had cut its channel in the lava-plateau of the Isle of Eigg, and, as shown by the 



