2i8 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
the plateau. In the map prepared by the officers of the 
Geological Survey the chalky boulder clay is shown to 
extend to the pit. 
Immediately after the discovery, Mr Moir called in 
the help of expert geologists. Mr Wm. Whitaker, 
F.R.S., wrote :^ "There is no doubt in my mind that 
the pit gives a junction section of the boulder clay with 
the underlying sand and gravel. ... I fail, however, to 
understand how man could have lived at the time of the 
commencement of the boulder clay, and I am in hopes 
that further excavation may throw more light on this 
strange occurrence. As yet we have the skeleton and 
nothing else." Professor Marr, F.R.S., of Cambridge 
University, examined the site of the discovery, but, while 
admitting that the stratum over the skeleton represented 
boulder clay, thought it possible that " the clay may have 
rrioved from another place " after its primary deposition. 
The Rev. Dr A. Irving of Bishop-Stortford, who has 
paid close attention to the more recent deposits of Essex, 
also examined the stratum which lay over the skeleton, 
and formed the opinion that it does not represent an 
extension of the chalky boulder clay, but is a much more 
recent deposit, to which he applies the term of " rubble 
drift." 
The antiquity of the Ipswich skeleton thus depends 
on the proof of two things : (i) that the stratum which 
lay over the skeleton was truly a part of the great sheet 
of chalky boulder clay, laid down during or after the 
period of maximum glaciation ; (2) that it was absolutely 
intact and undisturbed since the time of its deposition. 
Mr Moir was keenly alive to the fact that a skeleton 
found at a depth of 4^ feet (1-38 m.) was, unless con- 
vincing evidence to the contrary could be produced, 
most probably placed there by a gravedigger's spade.' 
He therefore took every means of verifying the un- 
broken and undisturbed nature of the stratum in and 
under which the skeleton lay, for it was embedded 
between the weathered boulder clay above and the 
i SG&Jour>t. Roy. Anthrop. Instil., 1912, vol. xii. p. 351. 
