Creswell Crags, a locality which lies within the presumed nonimplementiferous district, all the larger implements were made from quartzite, some of the tools being so rude that human workmanship can hardly be recognized upon them. I therefore venture to think that if competent observers like Mr. Landon will devote their attention to the ancient gravel-like alluvial deposits of our northern rivers, and seek for implements not formed of flint but of quartzite or some other of the older rocks, their search will be rewarded. In some of the Welsh caves the implements were for the most part made of felstone and chert.
The finding in the neighbourhood of Bridlington of a flint implement of a distinctly palæolithic type, seems to afford corroborative evidence in favour of extending the area of such discoveries, though it must be admitted that so far as at present known it was not lying in association with any remains of the pleistocene fauna.
It may be incidentally mentioned that palæolithic implements of quartzite, and even of Tertiary sandstones, occur though rarely in districts in which flint abounds. Possibly it was found that this material was tougher and less brittle than flint, and therefore better adapted for certain uses when the sharpness of the edge was not of primary importance. Most of the implements from India are formed of a quartzite which is more easily chipped into form than that of our English pebbles.
I now come to the important district drained by the Thames and its affluents, which comprises an area of upwards of 5,000 square miles. The number of localities within this area, where discoveries have been made in the ancient River-drift, has greatly increased since 1872, and at some of them palæolithic implements have been found in abundance.
The Thames valley may moreover lay claim to the first recorded discovery of any flint implement in the Quaternary gravels, whether in this or any other country. An implement is preserved in the British Museum to which my attention was first directed by Sir A. Wollaston Franks, and which is thus described in the Sloane Catalogue:—"No. 246. A British weapon found, with elephant's tooth, opposite to black Mary's, near Grayes Inn Lane. Conyers. It is a large black flint shaped into the figure of a spear's point. K." This K. signifies that it formed a portion of Kemp's collection. It appears to have been found at the close of the seventeenth century, and a rude engraving of it illustrates a letter on the antiquities of London, by Mr. Bagford, dated in 1715, and printed
