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The Museum Gazette 



NOTICES OF BOOKS RECEIVED. 



Neolithic Man in North-East Surrey. 1 — We have 

 much pleasure in directing attention to the cheaper re-issue 

 of this book. It is something more than ft mere cut-and-dried 

 account of explorations in a small area of a single county. In 

 the opening chapters, the sequence of races in Britain and the 

 Neolithic and bronze-using peoples are discussed. The follow- 

 ing paragraph from the chapter on Neolithic England and 

 Neolithic Surrey (p. 22) illustrates the authors' lucid and read- 

 able style : " The physical geography of Neolithic England 

 was in sharp contrast with that of the Palaeolithic period, 

 but bore a very close resemblance to that of the country 

 as we know it to-day. Britain was now sundered from the 

 rest of Europe. The severities of the glacial epoch were 

 gone, to return no more — that is, as we popularly reckon time. 

 Yet there were considerable differences in the contour, climate, 

 and occupants, which we proceed to indicate. If we would 

 revert, in imagination, to Neolithic England, we must first 

 extend the existing coast outwards to about the ten-fathom 

 line, to undo the effect of the submergence which has since 

 been going on. The Wash, part of the Thames estuary, and 

 the Bristol Channel must become dry land. We must see 

 thickets of scrubby oak, hazel, birch, and willow, thriving 

 miles away from the modern coasts of Holderness, Lincoln, 

 and Carmarthen ; we must uplift the sunken peat-bed of 

 Walton-on-the-Naze, and unite the Isles of Wight and 

 Anglesey to the mainland. The miry swamps and glittering 

 meres of Somerset are to reappear, the wide woodlands of 

 Wye, Anderida, Arden, and Sherwood are to be real forests, 

 untouched save for a casual clearing here and there on the 

 fringes. The present artificial drainage system, whether of 



1 " Neolithic Man in North-East Surrey," by Walter Johnson and William 

 Wright, with a chapter on Flint by B. C. Polkinghorne, B.Sc, F.C.S. With 

 numerous illustrations and maps. Cheaper re-issue. Paper covers. 3s. 6d. 

 net. London : Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, E.C., 1906. 



