3G ] 
knowledge of the last-named gentleman the existence of a series of 
deposits, principally composed of brickearth, which he could not 
assign to any recognized geological horizon, but which seemed to 
him all of the same age, and which he has called the Brandon beds. 
Mr. Skertchly says that although these deposits occur in a district 
from the greater part of which the chalky boulder clay has been 
denuded, they are never found except in association with an outlying 
fragment of that formation, which sometimes overlies, and at other 
times underlies thorn. His investigations have further led him 
to the belief that these beds are the oldest yet known from which 
paheolithic implements have been obtained, and that they un- 
doubtedly belong to some part of the glacial series. In November, 
187G, he communicated to the members of the Norwich Geological 
Society, the facts by which his views were at that time supported j 
but they were not so thoroughly convincing as could have been 
desired, seeing that the onus i>robandi rested on those who claimed 
a higher antiquity for man than had been otherwise established, 
lie has recently met with facts bearing on the same subject, 
which a few days ago he communicated to several members of this 
Society, but which arc not at present generally known. At Warren 
Lodge, about two miles from Mildenhall, are some brickearths, 
which have been long known as having furnished to archaeologists 
many specimens of unpolished implements, some of them of the 
rudest type. Mr. Skertchly has found that in more than ono 
clear vertical exposure these brickearths are overlaid by several feet 
of undisturbed, tough, chalky boulder clay, which in a large pit 
at a short distance is shown in section 25 feet in thickness. Un- 
fortunately the evidence is still encompassed with some amount of 
perplexity, as he has since ascertained by digging that these brick- 
earths also rest on boulder clay, so that they look as if they were 
wedged into a mass of that deposit. Taken as a whole, however, 
the general evidence in support of Mr. Skertchly’s contention that 
these Brandon beds are of interglacial age, which it would be 
impossible to give in detail here, is, in my opinion, of considerable 
weight. If his views are correct, it relegates the first appearance 
of man in Britain to a point much further removed from our own 
