xlv 
Vivian, presided during the early part of the evening, and on his 
being obliged to leave for Wales, the chair was filled by Dr. Barham. 
The main purpose of the meeting being a retrospect of the 
Autumn Excursion, special duties were assigned in three different 
departments ; Mr. W. Copeland Borlase giving an address on the 
Prehistoric Antiquities at Trevelgue Cliff-Castle and Barrows; 
Rey. W. Iago on more recent Antiquities, and especially Inscribed 
Stones ; and Dr. Barham on the Mining incidents of the Excursion. 
Mr. BoRLASE shewed what a strong fortress the early inhabi- 
tants of Cornwall had made of Trevelgué Island, and with what 
skill it had been defended by ditch and rampart ; and he explained 
most lucidly the character and importance of the interments in 
the barrows.* Referring to the various objects discovered within 
them, he spoke much concerning the considerable number of 
fractured flints; and thence adverting to the abundance of flints 
in the neighbourhood, he suggested two questions for consideration: 
lst, How came there flints in Cornwall? 2nd, Flints being here, 
what was the cause of their being fractured ’—It was impossible, 
he said, that man could either have brought them all hither, or 
have broken them all; though what Nature had brought and 
wrought, Man could utilize by application to his own purposes. 
Mr. Borlase fully accepted the opinion held by Mr. Etheridge that 
cretaceous beds once extended over the whole of what is now the 
West of England, and that the flints found here are relics of 
those beds, made bare by denudation of the chalk. 
Dr. BARHAM stated that he had himself collected at Scilly 
numerous flints, unbroken, and in nodules of chalk; there were 
also broken flints in large number on the surface soil; but it was 
a very important fact, that there were plenty in unbroken nodules 
beneath the existing soil. 
Mr. Bor.aseé, in confirmation of the opinion that flints found 
in Cornwall were a natural formation, though not in connection 
with any existing cretaceous beds, observed that, in Devon, flints 
were found similarly deposited on the greensand, as they were on 
various geological formations in Cornwall. Flint Finds, similar to 
those of which he had spoken, existed in other parts of North 
Cornwall, and also at Trelan, in the Lizard district. 
Mr. HUDSON suggested that some help in solving the question 
might be derived from the researches of Dr. Bowerbank. He 
had shown that flints were the produce of decayed sponges ; 
* See Mr. Borlase’s industriously compiled and carefully written work, 
recently published, entitled: ‘“‘ Nenia Cornubie, a Descriptive Essay, illus- 
trative of the Sepulchres and Funereal Customs of the Harly Inhabitants of 
the County of Cornwall.” 
