PROCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 
57 
The study of the glacial periods may be considered a most sublime and 
interesting subject, connected as it is so intimately with the history and 
antiquity of man. The cataclysms and many other physical phenomena 
which occurred in these latitudes are amazing ; and perhaps it were a mis- 
fortune, for the sake of truth and the advancement of science, that the 
genus Homo existed during the above periods in a low and debased form 
of organization. For countless ages he trod the earth, in all climes, a 
wandering savage ; and almost the only records left of him as works of 
art or design, which serve to distinguish him, in point of intelligence, 
from the brute creation, are a few specimens of rudely-chipped Hint- 
instruments, that were used by him alike for olfence, defence, hunting, and 
other purposes. 
From later researches, if the conclusions of the antiquarian and geolo- 
gist are to be accepted, it would appear that we must remove still further 
back in geological time the chronology of the human epoch. One species 
of a low form is mentioned as having become extmct, while it is afhrmed 
that the genus was represented by species in the Pliocene and even the 
Miocene period. Towards the Eocene beds of Sufiblk, this vexata 
qucestio seems to be trending ; since in them, according to a certain 
theory, there is to be found a fossil that may be the earliest prototype of 
the Bimana. I am, dear !Sir, yours respectfully, 
J. D. Sainter. 
Macclesfield^ January 5, 1864. 
PEOCEEDINGS OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 
East Kent Natural History Society. — At an evening meeting, 
held at Canterbury, on November 24th, a lecture " On the Tertiary Jieds 
of Kent " was delivered by W. Whitaker, B.A., F.G.S., of the Geological 
Survey of Great Britain, of which the following is an abstract : — 
The sedimentary rocks are divided by geologists into three groups, 
Primary, Secondary, and lerliary. The formations belonging to tlie hrst 
and oldest of these periods do not occur in the south-east of England, but 
are confined to the north and west. Of the Secondary period, only the 
higher formations (the Wealden and Cretaceous rocks) crop out to the sur- 
face in Kent. Of the Tertiary beds, on the contrary, only the lower divi- 
sions are known for certain to occur in this county, where, however, they 
are better developed and exposed than anywhere else. 
Before treating of the Tertiary formations, it is needful to say a few 
words of the underlying Chalk, the highest of our Secondary rocks. It is 
a sea-deposit, rich in fossils, of which many are such as must have lived at 
a great depth and apparently in the sea of a warm climate. From the fact 
that the fossils of the overlying beds are altogether of diiferent kinds from 
those of the Chalk, it has been inferred that those beds were not at once 
deposited on the Chalk, but that after the deposition of the latter, a long 
time passed away before other beds were formed over it. 
The Kentish Tertiaries belong to the " Eocene," or Lower Tertiary 
series ; and consist, in ascending order, of the Thanet beds, the Woolwich 
beds, and the basement bed of the London Clay, — grouped together by 
Prestwich (to whom we owe nearly all our knowledge of these beds) under 
the name of " Lower London Tertiaries," — the London Clay and the Lower 
Bagshot Sand. 
VOL. VII. I 
