PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 
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ham during the excavation for the Effra branch of the Great South Hisrh Level 
Sewer." Bv C. Rickman, Esq. 
Various details connected ^ith the open cutting running tlu'ough Peckham 
Rye to New Cross, and the tunnel at Dulwicli, liaving 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.) during the progress of .tbe work. Twenty- 
one species of shells, it was mentioned, had been discovered at Peckham, and 
nineteen at Dulwich. 
Archaeological axd Ethnological Societies — On the 19th of February a 
very important joint meeting took place in the rooms of the latter society, in 
St. 'Martin's Place, Trafalgar Square. We 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 pui-pose of discussmg a particular subject : — 
the result was an entire success. 
The fliut-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 hj ancient and 
modern peoples, concluding by recanting his former opinions as to tlie natural 
character of these fossil implements, and admitting his subsequent conviction 
that they were really of human manufacture. Amongst the collections exhibited 
were that wluch M. Boucher de Perthes presented in 1S47, the year previous to 
the publication of his Antiquites Celtiques," to the Ethnological Society, 
and those of Mr. Evans, of Hemel Hempstead, tlie Rev. ]\lr. King, of Hoxne, 
Dr. Hunt, of Hastings, Mr. Edward Tindall, of Bridlington, &c. 
Mr. Evans described the condition of tlie strata of Abbeville, Amiens, St. 
Acheul, &c., and stated the occurrence of Cijrence in the implement-bearing and 
mammaliferous drifts of the valley of the Somme. 
Sir Roderick Murchison exhibited specimens found on the beach near Herne 
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 Hoxne, 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 veiy important remarks on the Brixham cavern that 
we give his speech m 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 Avith 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, and was supposed to 
have been stolen; but in the course of a few days, as the excavation proceeded, 
VOL. IV. u 
