The ¥ * resident' s Address. 



19 



least idea that beneath his very feet were to be found the relics of 

 man's workmanship at a time when he was contemporaneous with 

 the elephant and other extinct animals. But the discoveries of M. 

 Boucher de Perthes in the valley of the Somme were going on at 

 that time, although they were not recognised by men of science 

 until ten years later, when our countrymen, Mr. Evans and Mr. 

 Prestwich, confirmed the opinions of the French savant. The valley 

 of the Avon, near Salisbury, was one of the first places examined 

 by Mr. Prestwich after his return from France in 1859, but although 

 the gravels had been well looked over by him and their fauna duly 

 recorded, no palaeolithic implements were discovered until later by 

 Dr. Blackmore 1 and Mr. Stevens in the drift beds at Fisherton and 

 elsewhere, where they were found in beds that had been deposited 

 before the valley had worked its way down to the level on which 

 Salisbury now stands. Since then, through the munificence of 

 Mr. W. Blackmore, the Museum, which bears his name, has made 

 Salisbury a place of reference for information on the antiquities of 

 this period. Similar discoveries were soon made in the valley of the 

 Thames, in which I had the privilege of taking part. Although not 

 the first discoverer of palaeolithic implements in the Thames valley, 

 as they had previously been found by Mr. Leech, Mr. Prestwich, 

 and Dr. Evans on the seashore near Reculver 2 I believe I may 

 claim priority for the part of the river near London. Having 

 carefully watched for the space of a year or more excavations in the 

 drift gravel at Acton, I was able in 1872 to show by means of 

 plans and sections published in the Quarterly Journal of the Geo- 

 logical Society the exact analogy of the palaeolithic site there with 

 that of the valley of the Somme near Amiens and Abbeville. Other 

 similar discoveries have since been made in the valley of the Exe 

 and elsewhere in this country. The nature of the implements found 

 in these gravels was such as to fully bear out the doctrine of 

 evolution, being characterised by extreme simplicity as compared 

 with the stone implements of a later date, and they introduce us to 

 a condition of the arts of man in which a simple flake or a flint 



1 Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, vol. xx., 1864, p. 188. 



2 Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, vol. xvii., 1861, p. 362. 



C % 



