110 MR. AND MRS. REID ON A PROIUBLE [Feb. 1 904, 



country, where time has allowed of the decay of all other rocks. 

 Under present climatic conditions similar material is being washed 

 down the slopes, to accumulate in the flat-bottomed valleys, such 

 as this must have been. This quartzose base of the ; head ' also 

 yielded a few doubtful implements, one of which is shown in 

 fig. 2 (p. 109). 



The quartzose loam passes upward into the well-known 'head' or 

 rubble-drift of Cornwall, which consists of an obscurely stratified 

 mass of local rocks, in blocks of all sizes, included in a more or 

 less loamy matrix. This deposit is so porous that any fossils have 

 disappeared, if such existed, and we are still without direct evidence 

 as to the climatic conditions under which it was formed ; but the 

 evidence seems decidedly in favour of the generally accepted view, 

 that it belongs to the later stages of the Glacial Period. Its mode 

 of occurrence strongly suggests soil-cap movement, or movement 

 aided by snow-slopes or masses of half-melted snow. The blocks 

 which it contains are fresher, larger, and have travelled farther 

 down gentle slopes, than is possible under present-day conditions. 

 It differs from the modern rainwash and soil, and from that below in 

 which the supposed implements are found ; but these land-surfaces 

 so closely resemble one another, that it is not easy to distinguish 

 them where landslips have brought the two into juxtaposition. 



Though palaeontological evidence is still deficient in Cornwall, 

 yet the succession in these Pleistocene deposits corresponds so 

 exactly with that found along the Sussex coast, that we cannot 

 refrain from thinking that the strata are of the same date. The 

 ' head' of the Cornish coast seems to be equivalent to the ' Coombe- 

 Rock ' of the Sussex coast. The raised beaches of the two dis- 

 tricts correspond. In each case we seem to find between them 

 Palaeolithic and old alluvial deposits. 



Discussion. 



Mr. E. T. Newton explained that, among the North American 

 implements which he exhibited in illustration of Mr. & Mrs. Reid's 

 paper, some beautifully formed arrow-heads were made from an 

 easily-worked material ; but one was made from vein-quartz, a 

 very intractable substance, from which only very rough implements 

 could be produced. 



Sir John Evans congratulated the Authors on having discovered 

 what was very possibly a Pleistocene land-surface in Cornwall, but 

 he objected to the use of the term ' Palaeolithic floor.' The word 

 ' Palaeolithic ' had a definite significance, and he could not accept 

 the implements exhibited from Prah Sands as Palaeolithic. They 

 were naturally-formed fragments of vein-quartz, which might indeed 

 have been utilized by the people whose remains were found asso- 

 ciated with the hearthstones. The question was only confused by 

 terming them Palaeolithic : there was no evidence to determine 



