Vol. 69.] THE HUMAN SKULL, ETC. FROM riLTDOAYN. 149 



to the Pleistocene age, and that the Pliocene mammalia in it — 

 Mastodon arvernensis and the rest — had been derived from a Pliocene 

 stratum formerly existing in that area. The latter were merely 

 adventitious, and were no proof of the Pliocene age of the stratum. 

 The Palaeolithic implements were, in his belief, of the same age as 

 the human bones. There was no connexion between the faculty 

 of speech and the capacity for making implements, as was urged by 

 the last speaker. The evidence was clear that this discovery revealed 

 a missing link between man and the higher apes, appearing at that 

 stage of the evolution of the higher mammalia in which it may be 

 looked for — in the Pleistocene age. The modern type of man had 

 no place in this age. 



He congratulated the Society on having had the clear and lucid 

 statement of the Authors supplemented by the valuable remarks 

 of Prof. Elliot Smith, the highest authority on the human brain. 



Dr. Duckworth agreed entirely with the Authors as to the 

 importance of the Piltdown skull, and also as to its general 

 significance. It was justifiable to associate the various fragments 

 as parts of one human skull ; and the simultaneous presence of so 

 many simian characters in one and the same specimen was a point 

 of great significance. Almost anyone of those characters might be 

 detected singly in human crania of existing types, especially if 

 search were directed to the more lowly of those. Even the mylo- 

 hyoid ridge was not so constant as Dr. Smith Woodward suggested. 

 Put, so far, the search made by the speaker for a flange-like con- 

 formation in a human jaw had been quite unsuccessful. This 

 character, even alone, possessed accordingly the great importance 

 attiibuted to it by Dr. Smith Woodward. On the anatomical side, 

 the Piltdown skull realized largely the anticipations of students cf 

 human evolution. To fulfil those anticipations completely, the 

 problem of the precise antiquity of the skull required solution. 

 Anatomists would, therefore, await eagerly the conclusions formed 

 by geologists on this aspect of the subject. 



Mr. Clement Peio observed that no detailed 'drift survey' had 

 yet been made of this particular area, but perhaps the survey of the 

 Sussex coastal plain might throw light on the age of the deposit at 

 Piltdown. In the coastal plain the Pleistocene deposits fall into 

 three main groups. At the bottom is the erratic deposit of Selsey, 

 probably contemporaneous with the Chalky Boulder Clay. Above 

 comes a series of interglacial deposits showing varying climates and 

 varying amounts of submergence, the submergence culminating in 

 the Goodwood raised beach, at 135 feet above the sea, and passing 

 away in the lesser submergence shown by the raised beach of 

 Brighton. Above all these marine and fluviomarine deposits lies 

 the great sheet of Coombe Pock, which shows a recurrence of 

 Arctic conditions, perhaps dry cold. The uppermost Pleistocene 

 deposit is probably of Mousterian date. 



The speaker tried to trace these deposits of the coastal plain 

 continuously, through the valleys which breach the South Downs, 

 into the Wealdeu area, but without much success. It seemed, 



