259 
of Mr. Conyers." This most interesting weapon agrees 
exactly with those found in the valley of the Sonime. In the 
museum belonging to the Society of Antiquaries, Mr. Evans 
found, on his return from Abbeville, some specimens exactly 
like those in the collection of M. Boucher de Perthes. On 
examination it proved that they had been presented by Mr. 
Frere, who found them with bones of extinct animals in a 
gravel pit at Hoxne in Suffolk, and had well described and 
figured them in the Archaeologia for the year 1800. Again, 
twenty-five years ago, Mr. Whitburn, of Godalming, (see 
Prestwich, Geol. Jour. August, 1861), examining the gravel 
pits between Guildford and Godalming, remarked a peculiar 
flint, which he carried away and has since preserved in his 
collection. It belongs to the " drift " type, but is very rude. 
Thus this peculiar type of flint implement has been actually 
found in association with the bones of the mammoth on 
various occasions during nearly a hundred and fifty years ! 
While, however, these instances remarkably corroborate the 
statements made by M. Boucher de Perthes, they in no way 
detract from the credit due to that gentleman. In addition 
to the above-mentioned, similar hatchets have been found in 
Suffolk, Kent, Bedfordshire, and Hertfordshire. In the first 
of these counties Mr. Warren, of Ixworth, obtained one from 
a workman in a gravel pit near Icklingham, and he sub- 
sequently found another himself. Finally, Mr. Evans 
himself, near Abbots Langley, in Hertfordshire, has picked 
up on the surface of a field a weathered hatchet with the top 
broken off, but otherwise identical in form with the spear- 
head-shaped specimens from Amiens and Heme Bay. 
But why, it may be asked, should the history of this 
question be so recounted ? Why should it be treated 
differently from any other scientific discovery ? The answer 
is not difficult. That the statement by Mr. Frere has been 
forgotten for half a century ; that the weapon found by 
