(The publication of this paper is unavoidably postponed.)
[Abstract.]
The author noticed some recently discovered localities in the valley of the Little Ouse which have yielded Flint Implements, viz. at Broomhill, about 350 feet from, and 5 or 6 feet above the level of the river; at Gravel Hill, about 1 mile from, and 60 feet above the river; at Shrub Hill, about 1 mile from, and only a foot or two above the river; and at Lakenheath, nearly 3 miles from the river, and 60 feet above it. In the first three of these localities the worked flints are in coarse gravel, resting immediately on the Cretaceous beds (chalk in the first and second, gault in the third), and overlain by regular deposits of gravel and sand. The implements resemble those of St. Acheul, Thetford, and Salisbury, but present some peculiarities, from which the author inferred that each place might have had its own workmen, and that the different forms were intended to answer different purposes. At Brandon some implements formed of quartzite had been found in a bed consisting of rounded quartzite pebbles mixed with about one-fourth of flints. Flint implements occurred beneath this bed.
The author described the geographical characters of the district and the peculiarities in the distribution of the flint implements, which he regarded as in accordance with the phenomena presented by the valley of the Somme; and he argued, from the presence of rocks of foreign origin and other considerations, that the implement-bearing gravels were not transported to their present situation by the agency of the rivers in whose valleys they occur, but that the implements were made upon the spot, exposed upon the surface with the gravels in which they are found, and from which they were made, and finally covered up by the gravels and sandy beds which now overlie them.
Discussion.
Mr. Prestwich dissented from the author as to many of his conclusions. There were in the district drained by the river Ouse beds of gravel belonging to the Boulder-clay series, from which the quartzite pebbles described might have been derived. The author had not taken into proper account the formation of the valleys by erosion, and it was a mistake to suppose that others had not also attributed the formation of the implements to the close proximity of the spots in which they are found. The implements were not limited to the lower part of the gravel, though principally occurring there, but occurred even above the seams of river-shells. He inquired whether the gravel between the Little Ouse and the Wissey might not belong to the Boulder-clay series.
Prof. Ramsay agreed with the author that flint implements might be found in other localities than those in the neighbourhood of rivers. He protested against referring the gravels to the rivers as
