Sir John Evans' Presidential Address. 461 



long and lofty escarpments of rock had receded unknown distances 

 since their summits were first occupied by Palgeolithic man ; we 

 saw that the whole side of a wide river valley had been carried 

 away by an invasion of the sea, which attacked and removed 

 a barrier of chalk cliffs from 400 to 600 feet in height ; we found 

 what was formerly an inland river had been widened out into 

 an arm of the sea, now the highway of our fleets, and that 

 gravels which were originally deposited in the bed of some ancient 

 river now capped isolated and lofty hills. 



And yet, remote as the date of the first known occupation of 

 Britain by man might be, it belonged to what, geologically 

 speaking, must be regarded as a quite recent period, for we 

 were now in a position to fix with some degree of accuracy its 

 place on the geological scale. Thanks to the investigations ably 

 carried out at Hoxne in Suffolk, and at Hitchin in Hertfordshire, 

 by Mr. Clement Reid, under the auspices of that Association and 

 of the Eoyal Society, we knew that the implement-bearing beds 

 at those places undoubtedly belonged to a time subsequent to 

 the deposit of the Great Chalky Boulder-clay of the Eastern 

 counties of England. It was, of course, self-evident that this vast 

 deposit, in whatever manner it might have been formed, could 

 not, for centuries after its deposition was complete, have presented 

 a surface inhabitable by man. Moreover, at a distance but little 

 farther north, beds existed which also, though at a somewhat 

 later date, were apparently formed under glacial conditions. At 

 Hoxne the interval between the deposit of the Boulder-clay and 

 of the implement-bearing beds was distinctly proved to have 

 Avitnessed at least two noteworthy changes in climate. The beds 

 immediately reposing on the clay were characterized by the presence 

 of alder in abundance, of hazel, and yew, as well as by that of 

 numerous flowering plants indicative of a temperate climate very 

 different from that under which the Boulder-clay itself was formed. 

 Above these beds, characterized by temperate plants, came a thick 

 and more recent series of strata, in which leaves of the dwarf 

 Arctic willow and birch abounded, and which were in all proba- 

 bility deposited under conditions like those of the cold regions of 

 Siberia and North America. 



At a higher level, and of more recent date than these — from 

 which they were entirely distinct — were the beds containing 

 Palajolithic implements, formed in all probability under conditions 

 not essentially diiferent from those of the present day. However 

 this might be, we had now conclusive evidence that the Palaeolithic 

 implements were, in the Eastern counties of England, of a date long 

 posterior to that of the Great Chalky Boulder-clay. 



It must not, however, for a moment be supposed that there were 

 the slightest grounds for believing that the civilization, such as it 

 was, of the Palgeolithic period originated in the British Isles. 

 We found in other countries implements so identical in form 

 and character with British specimens that they might have been 



