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VIII] might happen to have been lost with some of the stone implements, or with one of the human skeletons, apparently belonging to persons drowned, for no trace of a grave is ever mentioned. A find of this sort is no more improbable than the discovery of a useless modern revolver in a bag of stone and bone tools belonging to some Esquimaux far beyond the reach of ordinary civilized races.

In this connexion it might be worth while systematically to dredge the Dogger Bank, in order to see whether any implements made by man can be found there. The alluvial deposits are there so free from stones that if any at all are found in them they may probably show human workmanship. The Dogger Bank may have remained an island long after great part of the bed of the North Sea had been submerged, for the Bank now forms a submerged plateau. It may even have lasted into fairly recent times, the final destruction of the island being due to the planing away of the upper part of the soft alluvial strata through the attacks of the sea and of boring molluscs. Pholas is now actively attacking the hard peat-beds at a depth of more than 10 fathoms, and is rapidly destroying this accumulation of moorlog, wherever the tidal scour is sufficient to lay it bare.