Journal of Proceedings. xvii
find.* And finally he wished to know whether Mr. Smith had noticed
any relationship showing a sequence in time of the river-gravels when
compared with the glacial gravels in their district.
Mr. Robarts said he felt sure he spoke the feelings of every member in
saying how much they were obliged to Mr. Smith for his admirable paper,
which had given them a great deal of information about what had
occurred in their own neighbourhood. He should like to ask one or two
questions with regard to the hammer-stones. He wished to know whether
Mr. Smith had found these to be made of many kinds of stones, or
whether they were chiefly of quartzite—whether he had been able to trace
that one particular stone was better adapted for making implements than
another. Also, with regard to the three ages to which Mr. Smith had
referred, and the smaller and more finished implements which were made
in the latter period, whether the size of the implements was any indication
of the date—whether the very largest implements were all of the very
oldest date, or whether any of the very large implements were found in
the latest age ; in fact, whether the gravel contained such large stones at
the latest dates as it did at the earlier dates. Mr. Robarts also alluded
to the perfection of form shown in some of the Neolithic celts, and expressed
an opinion that they were really finer than some of the best axes we had
now; that was to say, the curves were more beautiful, though the imple-
ments were not perhaps so well adapted for cutting.
Mr. Smith, in replying, placed implements of the three ages side by
side, and held that they furnished conclusive evidence of a marked
improvement in the manufacture, and therefore in the status of the men
who made them. He was not able to give an immediate and short answer
to Mr. Meldola's question as to the rate of denudation of river valleys ;
the subject was a large and intricate one, and a whole evening would
hardly suffice for its discussion. He next referred to the question raised
by reference to Mr. Skertchley's discovery, and said he had unfortunately
seen none of Mr. Skertchley's sections, and so could give no opinion from
his own observation. Opinions were very much divided as to the age of
the material in which Mr. Skertehley had found the so-termed glacial
implements. Mr. Smith had found implements in gravel said to be
middle-glacial at Amwell, Ware, and Hertford, but some geologists
questioned the age of these deposits. The "hammer-stones" were nearly
always of quartzite; he had only two examples made of another stone:
both were of flint; one a rudely cylindrical nodule, the other a fossil cast
from the Upper Chalk—an Echinite (Ananchytes ovatus) ;—this had been
"found" by a palaeolithic man and used as a hammer-stone, and a
flake detached by repeated hammering. As to the sizes, he was sorry
to say that size was not an invariable test of the age of an implement,
* See Prof. Ramsay's ' Physical Geology and Geography of Great Britain,' pp. 481 and
544; Prof. Boyd Dawkins' 'Early Man in Britain,' p. 169, note (1880); 'The Fenland,
past and present,' by S. H. Miller and Sydney B. J. Skertehley, p. 546 (1878); and
Proc Essex Field Club, vol. ii., p. xxiv.—Ed.
b