hi Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 
denied and even derided, though one or two competent French geologists were 
convinced of their probable truth. It was not until the autumn of 1858 that 
Hugh Falconer, who then saw the collection made by Boucher de Perthes at 
Abbeville and was satisfied that the shaped flints were truly human 
implements, urged Joseph Prestwich to undertake an examination of the 
geology of the valley of the Somme, with the view of determining the precise 
position of these implements and of ascertaining whether or not there was 
evidence to prove their high antiquity. This task was accomplished in the 
spring of 1859 by Prestwich, who took Evans with him to assist in the 
investigation. The conjoint labours of these two observers, which completely 
demonstrated the accuracy of the French discoverer’s observations and 
conclusions, formed the first important step in winning general acceptance 
to the opinion, which had been so stoutly contested, that the human race, 
together with various tribes of animals that have been long extinct, must 
have inhabited Western Europe for a long succession of ages, wherein the 
rivers cut their way deeply into the valleys which they traverse. Prestwich 
communicated his results to the Royal Society, while Evans submitted 
a statement on the subject to the Society of Antiquaries, which had elected 
him one of its number in 1852. This paper appeared in the ‘ Archeologia ’ 
(vol. 38, 1860, p. 280), under the title of “Flint Implements in the Drift; 
being an Account of their Discovery on the Continent and in England.” 
The journey with Prestwich formed the turning-point in Sir John’s 
scientific career. From that time onwards he specially devoted himself to the 
investigation of the earliest traces of man which have been preserved in 
river-gravels, brick-earths, cavern deposits, or elsewhere. He became one of 
the most enthusiastic and successful collectors of flint implements. His 
singularly good powers of observation enabled him to detect them even 
on ground that had been already searched for them, and in any company of 
hunters for these objects he was generally the most fortunate. Even on 
a surface so long inhabited as that of Egypt his trained eyes enabled him to 
pick them up. Both abroad and at home he purchased freely every illustrative 
type which he could procure, until in the end he had amassed such a series 
of these objects as is probably possessed by no other private collector. 
Throughout his life he continued to publish from time to time notices of 
the progress of discovery in regard to the occurrence and distribution of flint 
implements. So recently as December, 1907, he communicated to the 
Geological Society what proved to be his last paper, on “Some Recent 
Discoveries of Flint Implements,” wherein he expressed his matured opinions 
regarding the probable origin of the high-level gravels in which these relics 
of primitive man have been found. 
But besides writing these scattered papers, Evans rendered a great service 
to the progress of archeology by his published’ volumes, in which he gathered 
together all the evidence which had been accumulating in different countries 
as to the types and distribution of the various relics of early human work- 
manship. The first of these separate works appeared in the summer of 
