﻿Address. 415 



We find distinct traces of river action from 100 to 200 

 feet above the level of existing streams and rivers, and 

 sometimes at a great distance from them ; we observe old 

 fresh-water deposits on the slopes of valleys several miles 

 in width ; we find that long and lofty escarpments of rock 

 have receded unknown distances since their summits were 

 first occupied by Pahieolithic man ; we see that the whole 

 side of a wide river valley has 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 

 find that what was formerly an inland river has 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 cap 

 isolated and lofty hills. 



And yet, remote as the date of the first known occupa- 

 tion of Britain by man may be, it belongs to what, 

 geologically speaking, must be regarded as a quite recent 

 period, for we are now in a position to fix with some 

 degree of accuracy its place on the geological scale. 

 Thanks to investigations ably carried out at Hoxne in 

 Suffolk, and at Hitchin in Hertfordshire, by Mr. Clement 

 Eeid, under the auspices of this Association and of the 

 Eoyal Society, we know that the implement-bearing beds 

 at those places undoubtedly belong to a time subsequent to 

 the deposit of the Great Chalky Boulder Clay of the 

 Eastern Counties of England. It is, of course, self- 

 evident that this vast deposit, in whatever manner it may 

 have been formed, could not for centuries after its deposi- 

 tion was complete have presented a surface inhabitable by 

 man. Moreover, at a distance but little farther north, 

 beds exist 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 is distinctly 

 proved to have witnessed at least two noteworthy 



