296 THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 
built in the time of her great successor — Queen Victoria. 
The law of evolution and of change has always held true. 
The French archaeologists recognised that this law is 
valid for the men who shaped the implements found in 
caves and valley gravels. 
When the stages in the evolution of these implements 
have been distinguished, we are provided with a scale of 
sequence of time to guide us safely and surely towards 
the very beginnings of humanity in the far past. Each 
generation of Palaeolithic men we now know copied and 
modified the flint tools of an older generation. One has 
only to survey the researches which Mr Lewis Abbot has 
made in the deposits and strata of the Weald to see how 
fruitful the acceptation of this conception has proved to 
the Sussex naturalists. 
From this cursory introduction the reader will perceive 
that Mr Dawson's discovery of fossil remains of man in 
the Weald of Sussex was not altogether a matter of chance. 
Business had taken him into the Weald. His way lay 
along quiet, sheltered country roads, following upwards 
the sluggish waters of the (Duse, until he reached that 
upland, open, and bracing country some eight miles to the 
north of Lewes. Here Piltdown Common is situated, a 
moorland tract, on which golfers may enjoy the " ancient " 
game under ideal conditions. The common is part of a 
wide sweep of fertile, well-wooded land, with old-world 
farm-houses, comfortable and sheltered, spread across it. 
Sussex churches, Sussex villages, and Sussex gardens 
make it a country worth seeing even by those who are 
not in pursuit of fossil man and his works. The land at 
Piltdown lies 120 feet above the sea ; but when we look 
southwards to catch a glimpse of the English Channel, 
the green South Downs rise up, with Lewes at their foot, 
and cut off the view. Westwards, the South Downs 
continue their course along the sea-board, sheltering 
Brighton from the north. In the wooded and undulating 
country to the north-west lies the source of the Ouse, 
some twelve miles distant. Standing on the common, 
we see that the Ouse is about a mile distant to the 
