Nor have these discoveries been confined to France. There has long been in the British Museum a rude stone weapon, described as follows:—"No. 246. A British weapon, found with elephant's tooth, opposite to black Mary's, near Graves inn lane. Conyers. It is a large black flint, shaped into the figure of a spear's point." Mr. Evans tells us, moreover, (l. c. p. 22) "that a rude engraving of it illustrates a letter on the Antiquities of London, by Mr. Bagford, dated 1715, printed in Hearne's edition of Leland's Collectanea, Vol. I. 6. p. lxii. From his account it seems to have been found with a skeleton of an elephant in the presence of Mr. Conyers." This most interesting weapon agrees exactly with those found in the valley of the Somme.
In the museum belonging to the Society of Antiquaries, Mr. Evans found, on his return from Abbeville, some specimens exactly like those in the collection of M. Boucher de Perthes. On examination it proved that they had been presented by Mr. Frere, who found them with bones of extinct animals in a gravel pit at Hoxne in Suffolk, and had well described and figured them in the Archæologia for the year 1800.
Again, twenty-five years ago, Mr. Whitburn of Godalming, (See Prestwich, Geol. Jour. August 1861), examining the gravel pits between Guildford and Godalming, remarked a peculiar flint, wnich he carried away and has since preserved in his collection. It belongs to the "drift" type, but is very rude. Thus this peculiar type of flint implement has been actually found in association with the bones of the mammoth on various occasions during nearly a hundred and fifty years! While, however, these instances remarkably corroborate the statements made by M. Boucher de Perthes, they in no way detract from the credit due to that gentleman.
In addition to the above mentioned, similar hatchets have been found in Suffolk, Kent, Bedfordshire, and Hertfordshire. In the first of these counties Mr. Warren of Ixworth obtained one from a workman in a gravel pit near Icklingham, and he subsequently found another himself. This specimen closely resembles the one figured in this Review (Vol. I. Pl. VII. fig. 10), which was given to me by M. Marcotte of Abbeville, who obtained it from Moulin Quignon.
The next discovery was made by Mr. Leech, on the shore between Herne Bay and Reculvers, whence altogether eleven specimens have been obtained, six found by Mr. Leech, and five subsequently by Messrs. Evans and Prestwich and Wyatt.[1] In the gravel near bedford, again associated with remains of the mammoth, rhinoceros, hippopotamus (?), ox, horse, and deer, Mr. Wyatt has found implements
- ↑ "Another implement of the round pointed form has been discovered in Kent (Nov. 1861), on the surfaoe of the ground at the top of the hill on the east side of the Darent, about a mile E.S.E. of Horton Kirby, by Mr. Whitaker, F.G.S., of the Geological Survey."—(Evans' Archæologia, 1861, p 18.)
