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 surface strewn with Roman refuse, such as tiles, pottery, and oyster shells. This fixes the date of the layer above as post-Roman; but the low position of the Roman land-surface, now at about mean-tide level, is due in great part to shrinkage since the marsh was embanked and drained—it is unconnected with any general post-Roman subsidence of the land. Beneath the Roman layer occurs more marsh-clay and silt (2), resting on a thin peat (4) which according to Mr Whitaker is sometimes absent. Then follows another bed of marsh-clay (5), shown by the engineer as four feet thick, but which in places thickens to six or seven feet. Below this is a thick mass (6) of reedy peat (the “main peat” of Mr Spurrell), which is described as consisting mainly of _Phragmites_ and _Sparganium_, with layers of moss and fronds of fern. The other plants observed in this peat were the elder, white-birch, alder and oak. Associated with them were found several species of freshwater snails and a few land forms; but the only animal or plant showing any trace of the influence of salt water was _Hydrobia ventrosa_, a shell that requires slightly brackish water. The main peat rests on another bed of estuarine silt (7 and 8), which seems to vary considerably in thickness, from 5 to 12 feet. It is not quite clear from the descriptions whether the “thin woody peat” of Mr Whitaker and the “sand with decayed wood” (9) of the engineer represent a true growth in place, like the main peat; it is somewhat irregular and tends to abut against banks of sand (9*) rising from below. In one of these banks, according to Mr Spurrell, the human skeleton was found.