In my Presidential Address delivered at the first meeting of the Society in 1908 I referred to the possibility that we might be able to trace in this part of the world the various periods which have hitherto been chiefly associated with deposits in rockshelters and caves in France and elsewhere. The object of the present paper is to bring before the members of the Society the present position of this question so far as my own researches are concerned with a view to stimulating further enquiries into the subject.

Before passing to details it will be necessary to give a brief account of the scope of the enquiry and to sum up our knowledge of the rock shelter and Cave periods of the Palæolithic Age so far as it is possible to do so. To give an adequate up-to-date description of the subject is not a very easy matter, for so far as I am aware no detailed account of the various Cave periods has been written in recent time, and advances in knowledge have to be sought for in the periodical publications of many different societies of various countries, a task which to most of us who are not within reach of a first-class library is practically impossible. Even when these can be consulted it rarely happens in my experience that sufficient attention is paid by illustration and description to the many varieties of types of implement associated with the different periods.