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The following from Professor T. McK. Hughes, F.G.S. (Woodwardian 
Professor of Geology at Cambridge), was then read : — 
“The Palace of St. Asaph, North Wales, January 10 th, 1881. 
I am much obliged to you for sending me the interesting paper of Dr. 
Southall on Pliocene Man in America. His explanation seems reasonable 
and well supported. It is the old story of the toad in the rock. It was 
true, I dare say, that men had found a toad in a hole in solid rock to 
which apparently there was no access except along the line they had newly 
broken. But they did not consider that in their quarrying they had destroyed 
all evidence of the fissure along which the toad crept, and in fact that they 
would not notice such a thing until the question had been raised 4 How did 
the toad get there ’ ? 
I think Dr. Southall shows that it was highly probable that, in all the 
cases recorded of mortars, &c., being found in the old auriferous deposits, the 
discoverers had only cut into ancient disused and perhaps collapsed mining 
levels. I am sorry that the author has gone out of his way in his first 
paragraph to sneer at the cautious Lyell and the clear-headed Lubbock. I 
confess I do attach great importance to the evidence they bring forward on 
the points referred to by the author ; though, of course, I do not think that 
any term of years can be assigned either to the earlier or later human periods 
of which they were writing. — Yours, very truly, 
Thomas McK. Hughes.” 
The following from Mr. N. Whitley, C.E., was then read : — 
“ Penarth, Truro, January 12 th, 1881. 
The conclusion arrived at by Dr. Southall that the stone mortars and 
dishes found in the gold-bearing gravels of California are the relics of ancient 
mining operations is supported by the analogous case of somewhat similar 
bowls and dishes having been found in the tin - bearing gravels of 
Cornwall. 
The ancient tin trade of Cornwall can be traced back with a considerable 
degree of certainty to a Phoenician origin, and the earliest operations appear 
to have been the extracting of the 4 stream tin ’ by open excavations from 
the lowest stratum of the valley gravels. This tin-bearing bed resting 
immediately on the oldest rocks of the county, was usually from two to four 
feet in thickness, and was covered by ordinary river gravel for a depth 
varying from four feet in the upland valleys, to sixty feet at their mouths. 
In addition to a plentiful supply of detrital tin-ore, small quantities of gold 
have been found mixed with the tin-ore. 
No relics of man’s frame or of his implements have been found in the tin- 
bearing stratum, but low down in the overlying gravel some few human 
skulls have been found ; and almost at as low a level a bronze crucifix was 
found in the gravel and is now in the museum at Truro. 
From the imperfect manner of working adopted by the ancient ‘streamers’ 
it has been found remunerative to work some of the gravel beds over the 
second time ; and thus relics of the implements of the 4 old men ’ (as they 
are called) have been found ; consisting of shovels and pickaxes formed 
wholly of oak timber, and others of a more advanced type, of wood tipped 
with iron, also many stone bowls, mortars, and dishes, mostly of granite, 
and varying much in size, form, and workmanship. 
In 1879 I obtained a fragment of a very symmetrical bowl from a small 
valley in the parish of Zennor : it was made of granite, and when complete 
measured twelve inches in diameter at the outside of the top, and would 
hold about two-thirds of a gallon. Three others, all of hard stone, have 
