In the district around the valley of the West Webburn stream which cuts north-south through eastern Dartmoor, Grimspound seems to attract most attention. I have found no reference to the old field boundaries and terraces which lie in this district, mostly within the western part of the parish of Manaton. This article deals with fields within, or adjacent to, the Manaton parish boundary, but there are also sets of terraces which I have observed, but not yet explored, mainly to the east of the Widecombe-Grimspound road, opposite Blackaton Manor. These terraces appear to be very similar to those described here, and as they are outside Manaton parish the connexion between the terminations of some sets of terraces and the parish boundary which, from the plan, appears to be significant, must not be emphasized.

In the last part of ANTIQUIT(YM arch 1938), Mr Nowell Myres has said certain things-many of them excessively handsome things about the excavation of Verulamium, and in particular about the Report which was written three or four years ago and was published by the Society of Antiquaries two years ago. In his commentary there is much that he and I may allow to rest in our mutual understanding. But there is much else that claims no such sanctuary ; and since he himself pleads guilty to the ‘ somewhat ungracious procedure ’ of having ‘deliberately taken up not so much the positive achievements of the authors’ work at Verulamium as what may be termed its negative results,’ I am tempted for a few pages to share his guilt and his ‘ ungraciousness ’-to deal, in short, with one or two matters which have escaped Mr Myres and must therefore have escaped other critics.

My subject should not be construed by the refined as a malicious innuendo, nor by the vulgar(unrepresented here, of course) as a ‘ dirty dig ’. The transition from ape to engineer is from the ridiculous to the sublime-or, at any rate, from a little short of one to a little short of the other. This handsome statement must serve as my panegyric on mechanical science. As an anthropologist, I am perturbed by the fact that human invention has outstripped man's organic development, and his control of nature his control of himself. So I propose to discuss the organic basis of mechanical achievement and the cause of man's physical and social lag in relation to his material progress.

There is perhaps no branch of archaeology of more fundamentalimportance than the study of the rise and development of agricul ture, seeing that it has been the governing factor in the Natural History of Man from the time of its introduction down to the Industrial Era. But the study of the evidence from Britain is not enough; hence Professor Hatt’s full and clear exposition of the Danish evidence is of special importance to British archaeologists, seeing that the rich discoveries preserved in the peat-bogs of Denmark can supply details that are missing in the British picture, or at least suggest to us directions in which future research may profitably be pursued. Professor Hatt’s wide knowledge and balanced judgment-not to mention his delightful personality-have won the confidence and respect of those British archaeologists who have had the privilege of knowing him, and his recent book on Danish agriculture is far too important to be left in the relative obscurity of the Danish language. Hence a brief summary of its principal contents is attempted here.

There is some truth in the assertion that the greatness of Britain, as displayed to the world at the Great Exhibition of 1851, should be ascribed as much to the favourable juxtaposition of iron andoal as to any qualities inherent in the British people : it can hardly be disputed that the re-eminence in Prehistoric Archaeology once enjoyed by France was due in large measure to therchaeological richness of the caves and rock-shelters of the Dordogne and the Pyrenees. But, if we must deplore the backwardness of France in fields where other countrie are as richly endowed by history, it is only fair to acknowledge that her archaeologists succeeded in systematizing. the cultures of Upper Palaeolithic man in western Europe, at a time when the Neolithic was still chaotic in many countries and a ' hiatus ' separated the two epochs. The exploration of the French caves began in the sixties of the last century and may be said to have already reached its culminating point by 1912, when Breuil put forward his famous classification at the Geneva Congress (Breuil, 1912). It is eloquent of the advanced stage reached by Upper Palaeolithic cave research in western Europe before the Great War that, after the lapse of a quarter of a century, Breuil has felt able (in 1937) to re-print his original lecture with only minoralterations.