Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/616

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RIVER-DRIFT IMPLEMENTS.
[CHAP. XXIII.

traversed by an irregular line of "trail," such as is often seen above palæolithic deposits and for which it is so difficult to account.

Mr. Percy Manning, F.S.A., possesses several palæolithic implements found near Oxford. Among eleven specimens from Wolvercote, mostly tongue-shaped, is one of brown flint 91/2 inches long and 41/2 inches broad, sharply pointed with a truncated butt and the sides curving outwards somewhat like Fig. 475. Another fine implement from the same place has straighter sides and is 63/4 inches long. The others are smaller, but among them is one of pointed form rather rudely chipped from a quartzite pebble.

Mr. Manning has also three implements dredged from a backwater of the Thames between Oxford and North Hinksey, one of them (41/2 inches) like Fig. 422, but more roughly chipped and much waterworn. Another (4 inches) is like Fig. 436, but more pointed. The third (51/8 inches), is a remarkably symmetrical ovate-lanceolate implement, in outline like Plate II., No. 11, made out of a pebble of quartzite, or possibly of chert. This also is waterworn.

At Broadwell, Oxon, on the borders of Gloucestershire, Mr. Manning found an implement (41/4 inches) resembling Fig. 459, apparently from gravel dug upon the spot. The village of Broadwell lies about 3 miles to the north of the Thames.

In my former edition I called attention to the discovery in the valley of the Wey, at Peasemarsh, between Guildford and Godalming, by the late Mr. Whitbourn, F.S.A.,[1] some sixty years ago, of the implement shown in Fig. 455, which is now in my own collection. It was found embedded in the gravel in a layer of sand about 4 or 5 feet from the surface, in apparently undisturbed ground. Mr. Whitbourn had heard of remains of large animals having been discovered in the same beds, but not in very close proximity to the spot where the implement was found. It is, as will be seen by the figure, of a different shape from the majority of the implements found in the River-drift, being very broad at the base and short in proportion to its width. The flint of which it consists is grey and slightly ochreous. At the base is a considerable portion of the original crust of the flint, which is stained of a dull red. The gravel beds, in which it was found, have been described by Mr. R. A. C. Godwin-Austen, F.R.S.[2] They rest on Wealden Clay, and in places, on beds of the Lower Greensand. The material principally consists of sub -angular chalk flints, and

  1. Evans, Arch., vol. xxxix. p. 72; Prestwich, Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1861), vol. xvii. p. 367; Lyell, "Ant. of Man," p. 161; Lubbock, "Preh. Times," 4th ed., p. 353.
  2. Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. vii. p. 278.