Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/84

74 I now come to the real point and object of this paper. We have in England, at Hoxne, one of the finest opportunities known to exist anywhere in Europe of determining the true relation that the beds containing remains of palæolithic man and the great extinct Mammalia bear to the Glacial period; yet we have been content for more than a dozen years to allow the age of the beds that underlie these deposits to remain a conjecture, and to accept a theory instead of ascertaining what are the true facts of the case. The geological world has been taught to believe that a question was settled that is not settled. We do know the age of the Hoxne deposits: they may, as held by Prof. Prestwich, be postglacial; or they may, as held by Messrs. Croll and Geikie, be interglacial; or, lastly, they may, as I hold, be preglacial.

It is not creditable that this uncertainty should remain when it can easily be cleared up. A few shafts or bore-holes put down would soon determine whether or not glacial beds underlie the dark clays of the brick-pit, or sands and gravel underlie the bowlder-clay on the other side of the brook. Excavations should also be made around the spot where Mr. Frere made his discoveries, to ascertain the exact position in which the flint implements were found so abundantly. I feel satisfied that, if Sir Edward Kerrison, to whom the property belongs, were applied to by any of our learned societies, he would willingly allow the necessary excavations to be made. Probably the expenditure of two hundred pounds would be amply sufficient, and I submit that it is a work that should be undertaken by the Royal Society or the British Association, who make grants for scientific inquiry.—Quarterly Journal of Science.



POPULAR error has long existed as to the real character of short-sightedness; and even medical men have to some extent participated in it. It is not an indication of strength of vision. It is a disease, always inconvenient, and sometimes dangerous. Its 