Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/611

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
EALING AND ACTON.
589

Lea for future pages, and to proceed up the Thames valley towards its sources.

Fig. 453d.—Stoke Newington Common. 1/2

Nearly ten miles to the west of London, and on the northern side of the Thames, the careful researches of General Pitt Rivers, F.R.S., have been amply rewarded, he having found several implements of well-marked palæolithic types, and numerous flakes, in the gravels of Ealing Dean and Acton.[1] He has fully described the localities and given sections of the beds in a communication to the Geological Society.[2]

At the former spot, the surface of the ground is 92 feet above Ordnance Datum, and here several implements have been found. At Acton the surface is from 60 to 80 feet above high-water mark, and here an implement of oval form was found beneath 7 feet of stratified sand and gravel, and resting on the clay beneath; another, of pointed form, was found in the middle of the gravel, about 10 feet from the surface, and beneath beds of sand 8 feet in thickness. Others were found in gravel from the same spot, and from Mill Hill, half-a-mile to the westward, which had been spread on the roads. One of the pointed implements from Ealing Dean is shown in Fig. 454. In form it much resembles that from Reculver, Fig. 458, though smaller in size. Like all the other implements from these two spots, it is stained of the ochreous colour of the gravel, and has had its angles worn away by being rolled in water along with the other constituents of the gravel. The flakes, which are comparatively abundant, are for the most part
  1. Brit. Assoc. Report, 1869, p. 130. He has also kindly furnished me with other particulars.
  2. Q.J.G.S., vol. xxviii. p. 449.