PKOCEEDIXGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 



153 



ham during the excavation for the Effra branch of the Great South Hi°:h Level 

 Sewer." By C. Rickman, Esq. 



Various details connected with the open cutting running through Peckham 

 Rye to New Cross, and the tunnel at Dulwich, having been given, attention 

 was drawn to the remains of leaves, of shells (several of which have been 

 figured and described in the last volume of this magazine, page 210), bones, 

 and insect wing-cases, which have been found in soft and indurated clay by 

 Mr. Evans (see page 39, vol. iv.) duriug the progress of k tbe work. Twenty- 

 one species of shells, it was mentioned, had been discovered at Peckham, and 

 nineteen at Dulwich. 



Archaeological and Ethnological Societies — On the 19th of Febraary a 

 very important joint meeting took place in the rooms of the latter society, in 

 St. Martin's Place, Trafalgar Square. TVe lay stress in this case on the term 

 important, because this is the first instance of a joint meeting of any of the 

 learned societies for the express purpose of discussing a particular subject : — 

 the result was an entire success. 



The Hint-implements from the drift have attracted the earnest attention both 

 of geologists and antiquaries, and on this occasion Mr. Thos. Wright, F.S.A., 

 who was, we believe, the promoter of the joint-meeting, opened the dis- 

 cussion by an oral description of the collections exhibited, and gave a 

 general account of the history and uses of stone implements by ancient and 

 modern peoples, concluding by recanting his former opinions as to the natural 

 character of these fossil implements, and admitting his subsequent conviction 

 that they were really of human manufacture. Amongst the collections exhibited 

 were that which M. Boucher de Perthes presented inlSlZ, the year previous to 

 the publication of his *' Antiquites Celtiques," to the Ethnological Society, 

 and those of Mr. Evans, of Hemel Hempstead, the Rev. Mr. King, of Hoxnc, 

 Dr. Hunt, of Hastings, Mr. Edward Tindall, of Bridlington, &c. 



Mr. Evans described the condition of the strata of Abbeville, Amiens, St. 

 Acheul, &c, and stated the occurrence of Cyrena in the implement-bearing and 

 mammaliferons drifts of the valley of the Somme. 



Sir Roderick Murchison exhibited specimens found on the beach near Heme 

 Bay, and supposed to have failed from the gravels on the surface of the London 

 clay and Tertiary beds there. 



The Rev. Mr. King described the deposits at Hoxnc, and stated that a 

 mammaliferous stratum occurred in the bottom of the valley of the .Waveney, 

 which must have been deposited subsequent to the excavation of the valley 

 of the river. 



Mr. Pengelly made such very important remarks on the Brixham cavern that 

 we give his speech in full. 



Mr. Pengelly said that there were reasons before the conclusive evidence 

 obtained from the Brixham cavern, in 1858, for concluding that relics of man 

 were associated with those of the fossil mammals. Such had been the case in 

 Kent's Cavern, near Torquay, and from circumstances which had been met with 

 there, it was argued that man was contemporaneous with those great beasts. 

 One hitch, however, existed in the bare possibility that the collection was not 

 original; but in 1858 a circumstance arose which has caused much light to be 

 thrown on the question. In the November of the preceding year, a person 

 residing at Brixham purchased the freehold of a small portion of a limestone 

 hill immediately adjacent to the town, his intention being to work it as a quarry 

 and ultimately to erect a few cottages on the excavated site. In January, 1858, 

 the quarrying disclosed, in a north and south line of fracture, a hole large enough 

 to admit of a man's hand. On one occasion when the workmen returned from 

 their meals a crowbar which had been left was missing, aud was supposed to 

 have been stolen ; but in the course of a few days, as the excavation proceeded, 

 VOL. iv. u 



