Vol. 70.] PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. XI 



the Hint-bed, appeared to the speaker to he opposed to the laws of 

 physics and quite untenable. 



Specimens of. flaked flints were shown, having shelly Crag and 

 barnacles of the Red-Crag Sea attached to their worked surfaces. 



Mr. E. A. Martin wished to point out that primitive Man,, 

 when he began to use tools, probably made them of wood. When 

 he became perfect in tool-making, he was able to fashion those finely- 

 chipped implements the genuineness of which was unquestioned. 

 There was of necessity an intermediate stage, when his attempts at 

 flint-chipping Avere rudimentary and clumsy. Those who believed 

 in Eoliths held the opinion that these were his first attempts. 



Mr. S. H. Warren said, with reference to remarks that had 

 been made, that he must point out the extreme difficulty of 

 working experimentally under conditions such as would come 

 within Mr. Moir's definition of ; unguided natural force.' There 

 were many natural products which it was by no means easy to 

 reproduce experimentally. He felt that the only scientific attitude 

 to hold, in regard to experiments with flints, was to use them as. 

 an investigation of the chipping properties of flint ; and that the 

 knowledge of flint-fracture so gained should be applied by careful 

 comparison with the chipping of alleged human implements, and 

 on the other hand with that which geologists also knew of the 

 operation of mechanical forces in Nature. 



Mr. P. G. H. Boswell said that, with regard to the so-called 

 ' rostro-carinate ' type of implements, the President's first question 

 as to whether the geological horizon of the flints was certain, had not 

 been discussed. The stratigraphical position of the large majority 

 of chipped flints which were said to come from below the Red Crag 

 was not certain; out of fifteen (presumably the best at that time) 

 figured and described bv SirE. Rav Lankester, 1 no less than twelve 

 were from either Messrs. Bolton & Laughlin's brickyard or the 

 Hadleigh-Road pits, both at Ipswich. Each of these sites, on 

 account of its position on the flank of the Gripping Valley, was- 

 intensely disturbed by glacial action, the London Clay, supposed 

 Red-Crag debris, and Grlacial sand, gravel, and clay being contorted 

 and overthrust until the sequence was repeatedly inverted. Before 

 discussing the question of the human or natural chipping of these 

 supposed implements, it seemed highly desirable that geologists 

 should insist upon ruling out all flints which had been obtained 

 from glacially-disturbed deposits, and all those not actually taken 

 in situ from below Red Crag. It might be mere coincidence, but 

 it was a point worthy of note by those who insisted upon the natural 

 chipping of flint, that the best implements had been obtained from 

 two localities where ice-pressure had been intense upon valley- 

 spurs, the beds being disturbed for some 40 feet in depth. 



Ao-ain, the term ' Middle Glacial ' had served a very useful 

 purpose in the past, but the time had now arrived when the various 

 Glacial deposits of East Anglia should be more clearly defined, 



1 Phil. Trans. Eoy. Soc. ser. B, vol. ccii (1912) pp. 283-336. 



