MR. FITCH exhibited a collection of ancient Carib conch implements, chisels and hones; and a piece of Carib pottery, sent by the Rev. Greville J. Chester to the Norwich Museum from Codrington Estate, Barbadoes. (See Wilson's Prehistoric Archæology; and Archaeological Journal, vol. xxvii. pp. 43, 71.)

December 1st. MR. FITCH exhibited a fine collection of stone implements from Denmark, Sweden, and Ireland.

1869, May 4th. MR. MANNING exhibited a collection of Saxon antiquities belonging to Mr. A. Marsh, of Diss, consisting of bronze fibulæ, clasps, buckles; and about a hundred amber and glass beads, found at Kenninghall.

MR. FITCH exhibited a silver ring found at Earlham; a "bronze celt found at Reedham; and a white flint implement from Lakenheath.

July 6th. A drawing was presented by the Rev. E. J. HOWMAN, of a mural painting discovered on a splay of a window in Denver Church. The subject is uncertain; the date apparently circa 1360.

MR. MANNING exhibited a brass plate, (see Illustration) size 8 inches by 61, chased with foliage, and pierced with a large circle in the centre, and with four quatrefoils in the corners, the circles having round the edge the 360 degrees, and the letters of the alphabet, one to every fifteen degrees. It was procured from a farm-house at Bressingham, near Diss, and was among a collection of curiosities formed by a Mr. Harrison, resident there about 150 years ago, and mentioned in Blomefield's Norfolk, vol i. p. 73. It was inserted in a pantry door, and the central circle was used to pass the hand through to lift up the latch. This instrument being thought to be a portion of an astrolabe, the following remarks are added from a letter received from a

high authority on such subjects, Octavius Morgan, Esq., M.P.

He says:

"It is, I think, certainly not a portion of an astrolabe, although the graduated scale is, like the limb or outer circle of an astrolabe, divided into 360 degrees. Here every division of fifteen degrees seems to be designated by a letter of the alphabet, while in every astrolabe I have scen, and I have three or four, and there are several in the British Museum, it is not so. The usual astrolabe was a circular instrument having several flat plates, rulers, and indices, revolving on either side of it, and was suspended by a ring by which it was held on the thumb when observations were made by it. The plate you have is doubtless a portion of some such instrument, but whether for vertical or horizontal use is not clear. The hollow centre must certainly have been filled by some moveable dials or plates, with perhaps a ruler, index, or sight, as in an astrolabe. The four quatrefoils I take to have been simply ornamental.” *

MR. FITCH exhibited a fine gold gimmel ring of five pieces, with joined hands.

A letter was read from T. BARTON, Esq., reporting the discovery of Roman coins at Fincham, and of Roman urns at Ovington.

August 10th. MR. FITCH exhibited a "drinking-vessel " of pale earthenware, British, found some years ago at Edgefield, Norfolk; peculiar from having a cross on the under surface.

December 1st. MR. FITCH exhibited a gold ring set with an uncut emerald, found at West Bilney.

1870, May 3rd. The Secretaries reported that they had visited "Grime's Graves," in Weeting, in company with Canon Greenwell and others; and that he had made very important discoveries there. These have been since communicated in a paper read before the Ethnological Society, in London. By the kind permission of Canon Greenwell, the principal part of his paper, so interesting and valuable to every student of pre-historic antiquities, is here reprinted. Brandon (he says) is with one exception, the only place in England where the manufacture of gun-flints is still maintained. This is principally due to the

See Mr. Morgan's "Observations on the Astrolabe," Archæologia, vol. xxxiv.

abundance of flint, of a superior quality, which the Upper Chalk of the neighbouring district supplies. The town is situated on the River Ouse, there forming the boundary between the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk; and the locality has been, in various ages, the abode of people who have used flint extensively, though for very different purposes. The drift-gravel, found at levels of greater or less height in the valley of the river, has been most prolific in implements of the time when man was occupying the country together with many extinct mammals. These beds, worked for road material, at Thetford, Downham, Broomhill, and Brandon Fields, have afforded an almost endless store of palæolithic implements, as the cases of many a museum bear witness. In very much later, but still in pre-historic times, the district was occupied by a large population, as is shown, amongst other indications, by the numerous articles of flint lying scattered upon the surface of the ground. In a country like that in question, where the soil is an infertile and drifting sand, it appears difficult, at first sight, to account for its having been so extensively occupied in those early days an occupation which continued throughout Roman and Anglian times. Without taking into consideration the supply of flint, in itself a mine of wealth to a stone-using people, the isolation, and therefore defensible position of the locality, was, probably, one reason why it became the place of habitation of a numerous population. To a great extent it is separated from other parts by the Fens, which, under any circumstances, must always have presented a strong barrier against attack from the west and north. Besides the defence afforded by the Fens, they provided, in their forests and swampy thickets, a constant supply of game-one of the principal requirements in any place of abode selected by a people who to some extent subsisted by the chase. The country was then, as it is still, a very paradise of the hunter, whether the necessity of existence was the motive which impelled him to the exercise of his craft, or he was prompted thereto merely by the love of sport. The deer, the swine, and the ox were the wild animals which then rewarded the hunter's toil, now replaced by the hare, the rabbit, the pheasant, and the partridge.

As has already been stated, implements of flint, most of them belonging to the neolithic age, are found scattered over the surface of the ground throughout the whole of the locality in question. There are some particular sites, however, where such articles, together with large numbers of chippings and cores of flint, imperfect and broken implements, and the tools with which they were fabricated, are discovered in still greater profusion. One of these is situated about three miles N. E. of Brandon, and one mile north of the River Ouse, at a place called Grime's Graves, in the parish of Weeting and county of Norfolk. It is evident from the quantity of refuse pieces of flint, and the numerous fabricating-tools still remaining at the spot, that it was the place where a manufactory of flint implements had been carried on; and the purpose of this paper is to give an account of the examination of the pit-workings there, from which the material itself was obtained.

Before describing the pits themselves and the way in which the flint was worked, it may be well, in the first instance, to give some account of the implements, whole and broken, and of the articles in flint and other stone, found on the fields immediately adjoining to the pits. This appears to be necessary, because there can be no doubt that in them we have the result, to some extent, of the operations of the people who quarried the flint; and we may thus gain a knowledge of the implements they fabricated, and by that