vol. 51.] from paleolithic gravels in kent. 525 



Discussion. 



Mr. Elliott said that the whole of the particulars appertaining 

 to his discovery were embodied in his letter to the Author, and 

 there was therefore very little to add. When he made the 

 discovery he closely examined that portion of the pit in which 

 part of the remains were still lying in situ, and felt certain that 

 the gravel above them was undisturbed. There was one matter to 

 which he wished to refer, and that was the reason why he had left the 

 remains so long before bringing them to the notice of the Society. 

 He had a desire to describe them himself ; but, finding this im- 

 possible, he had decided to place the remains in the hands of 

 Mr. E. T. Newton. 



Mr. Heys said that the letter read by the Author contained the 

 facts, so far as he had been able to ascertain them. He had seen 

 the skull in situ, and was struck with the depth below the surface 

 at which it lay, and by the natural stratification of the gravel 

 in close contact with it. He had left the skull in place, in order 

 that he might obtain corroborative evidence, or have it photo- 

 graphed ; but to his great annoyance it had been removed by the 

 workman when he again visited the spot. 



Sir John Evans expressed his high appreciation of the great care 

 and wealth of detail that Mr. Newton's paper exhibited. It seemed 

 to him that the communication might be divided into two absolutely 

 distinct sections — the one anthropological, the other geological. It 

 was on the latter branch of the subject only that he proposed to say 

 a few words. There could be, he thought, no doubt of the deposits 

 at and near Swanscombe being true Pleistocene high-level gravels 

 of the valley of the Thames ; and the abundance of Palaeolithic 

 implements that occurred in them seemed to place their age beyond 

 all doubt. With regard to the human remains, the real question at 

 issue was whether they were deposited where found with the other 

 constituent parts of the gravel, or not. It was unfortunate that so 

 long a period had elapsed between the discovery of the bones and 

 the attention of geologists being called to it. The evidence, how- 

 ever, of the undisturbed character of the beds seemed fairly strong, 

 though, so far as he had understood the paper, one witness described 

 the bones as having been found in gravel and the other in loam. 

 Perhaps, however, both might mean the same deposit. The fact 

 that the remains were found, not at the base of the gravels, like 

 other bones from the same locality, but some few feet above the 

 Chalk, was noteworthy ; but what weighed most with him, and led 

 him to doubt whether the bones were of the same age as the gravels, 

 was the fact that nearly the whole skeleton, including the lower jaw 

 and clavicle, had been preserved. Although occasionally in brick- 

 earth the bones of a limb might have been found together, it might be 

 regarded as almost if not quite universally the case that in gravels 

 isolated bones only were found. The occurrence of a nearly perfect 

 skeleton was suggestive of an interment; and the accumulation of 

 surface-soil above the gravel might give the grave in which the body 



