Page:Antiquity of Man as Deduced from the Discovery of a Human Skeleton.djvu/26

20 has subsided—has given way to a new and different soil, which continued to receive accessions of different and definable characters (see "Section") until a vertical thickness of 30 feet was superimposed. The geological operations on which depended the formation of the new deposits and the subsidence of the old ones give, however, no indication of a violent or sudden dealing with the then earth’s surface at the locality in question.

The constructors and indwellers of the localities "Ambersbury" and "Loughton Camps," the defensive earth-works of which have recently been exposed in Epping Forest, were armed with flint weapons of Palæolithic character. Our most experienced Antiquaries are "at one" in the conclusion that these rudely fortified structures were "pre-Roman"; but the period of the antecedent existence of such ancient Britons, who have left evidences in their entrenchments of cooking-fires as well as tools, remains conjectural. It can hardly give them better claim to a Palæolithic date than may be attached to the Tilbury skeleton.

Should the scrutiny of experienced Students of Surface- modifications be rewarded by an indication or proof of any change in the geological characters of the north bank of the Thames since Julius Cæsar's or Vespasian's time, it must be insignificant compared with that period during which occurred a subsidence of the soil, rendering that bank uninhabitable by the man of the black-sand epoch.