Local Scientific Societies , d Minor Prehistoric Remains. 117 
knowledge of prehistoric archaeology. But vast as have been 
the strides in this department of knowledge within the last 
quaitei-century, it is certain that even now we are only on 
the threshold of a dim region into which advance is becoming 
more and more difficult with the increasing scantiness of the 
evidence the further we penetrate backwards into the history 
of our race. The labours of cave-hunters and searchers into 
our ancient river gravels—the excavators of our earthworks 
and tumuli—have garnered a rich harvest of facts upon which 
is based the existing knowledge of ancient man. The old 
method of solving problems in prehistoric archaeology by 
attaching a tradition to any ancient monument of which the 
history was unknown, has been weighed in the balance and 
found wanting. The erudite verbiage of the old-school anti¬ 
quarian has been displaced by the shovel and pick of the 
modern investigator. 
While the spirit of scientific enquiry is thus gradually 
enabling us to reconstruct some few chapters of the past 
history of man from such remains as have been preserved to 
us, the extreme importance of the relics themselves is as a 
natural consequence becoming more and more recognized. It 
must have been with the greatest satisfaction that anthropolo¬ 
gists heard that the ancient monuments of this country, thanks 
to the foresight of Sir John Lubbock, were to receive Govern¬ 
ment protection. For years past the destruction of the most 
venerable relics has been going on, partly through local 
ignorance of their value, partly through wilfulness, and 
partly through the unavoidable clearance of ground for build¬ 
ing and agricultural purposes. But although the larger and 
better-known remains are now secured from demolition, 
there are numerous smaller and less-known relics scattered 
over the country, which in the course of time are doomed to 
destruction by the advancing tide of civilisation. As may be 
seen on reference to good topographical works, the irrepa¬ 
rable losses which anthropological science has already in¬ 
curred in this way are enormous. The most deplorable 
feature in these cases of destruction is that they have 
occurred without adequate scientific supervision, and any 
