48 
place where sand is combined with water and both act on the surface of a 
flint ; examine the pieces that are found with no definite form in the sand- 
beds of Brandon, or wherever you like to go — they may be seen over miles 
of the Norfolk coast— and I am sure you will say that my view of the chipping 
is the common-sense view, in the common-sense aspect to which Dr, 
Carpenter has referred. (Hear, hear.) I have done. 
Mr. W. T. Charley, M.P.— I beg to move a vote of thanks to the Earl 
of Harrowby for his great kindness in presiding this evening. (Cheers.) 
The motion having been seconded, and carried unanimously, 
The Chairman said, — In thanking you for the vote you have just passed 
I must apologize for having come here at all this evening, having no preten- 
sions, from the previous direction of my studies, to assume such a position ; 
and I should not have assumed it if I had been expected to do more than occupy 
the chair. Perhaps, however, it may be allowed me, with no pretensions to 
skill in these matters, to say, so far, that it appears to me to be one of the 
cases in which antagonism is not quite so real as appears. On the one hand, 
the very wide range over which these flint-flakes are found, and their enormous 
numbers, seem to prohibit the conclusion that they are the work of man, and to 
favour the opposite view, that they must be the result of natural agencies. On 
the other hand, the forms in which many of them present themselves are so 
artificial, that it seems impossible not to come to the opposite conclusion. It 
seems to me to be a question of the analysis of the facts, rather than 
matters of argument and reasoning, and that such a process is almost im- 
possible in a meeting like the present. It is certain that there are many 
cases in which Nature produces results so closely resembling the work of man 
that it is difficult to draw the line with confidence, and to say, this must be 
the work of man, and this other may be the work of natural causes. In the 
valley of the Nile, I have seen instances where flinty substances are in that 
condition, so placed that apparently they could not have been the work of 
man, and yet so shaped that it was difficult to see how they could have been 
the result of natural causes. The action of heat and wind, and water and 
sand, upon the softer portions of a substance, and with some uniformity, seems 
to produce results which wonderfully resemble the action of art, and puzzles 
the observer. I do not see that we are yet able to come to a positive con- 
clusion on all the facts presented to us. 
The proceedings then terminated. 
