Page:Antiquity of Man as Deduced from the Discovery of a Human Skeleton.djvu/9



the 1st October, 1883, I was favoured with a letter from my friend Colonel Du Plat Taylor, informing me that "in the course of the extensive excavations at the Dock-works at Tilbury, north bank of the Thames, portions of a Human Skeleton had been found at 34 feet below the surface in a bed of sand; above this was a bed of clay, then a bed of peat 5 feet thick, and between this peat and the surface was another bed of clay."

The Colonel was so good as to put me in communication with Mr. Donald Baynes, the Engineer superintending the excavation at the time of the discovery, and that gentleman, bringing the remains in question for my examination, favoured me with the annexed diagram [facing this page], in more detail, of the strata down to and including the one in which the skeleton was found. In a "Note" which accompanied the "diagram" Mr. Baynes states:—"The sand ('Section,' no. 9), at the part in which the human remains were found, is 34 feet below the present surface."

In the work of excavation some disturbance of the skeleton had taken place before the Superintendent's