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II] layers made by Mr Spurrell, for though his specimens did not come from exactly this part of the docks, the various beds are traceable over so large an area that there is no doubt as to their continuity.

Owen thought that this skeleton belonged to a man of the Palaeolithic period, considering it contemporaneous with the mammoth and rhinoceros found elsewhere in the neighbourhood. Other geological writers showed however that these deposits were much more modern, and some of them spoke somewhat contemptuously of their extremely recent date. But Huxley saw the importance of this "river-drift man" as an ancient and peculiar race, and Professor Keith has more recently drawn especial attention to the well-marked characteristics of the type. The skeleton is not of Palaeolithic date, but neither is it truly modern; other examples have turned up in similar deposits elsewhere.

We will now describe more fully the successive layers met with in Tilbury Docks, condensing the account from that given by Messrs. Spurrell and Whitaker, and using where possible the numbers attached by the engineer to the successive beds.

It will be noticed that the marsh-level lies several feet below Trinity high water. Below the sod of the marsh came a bed of fine grey tidal clay (1), in which at a depth of seven feet below the surface Mr Spurrell noted, in one part of the docks, an old grass-grown