Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/652

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RIVER-DRIFT IMPLEMENTS.
[CHAP. XXIII.

I am not aware of any organic remains having as yet been found in these upper gravels, though they are abundant in the brick-earth at a lower level, at Fisherton Anger, where, however, flint implements are so scarce that only few have been found; two of these are in the Blackmore Museum. One of them, obtained beneath remains of the mammoth, in 1874,[1] is shown in Fig. 471. The flint of which it is made has become white and porcellanous, its angles are sharp, but along the edges of both sides towards the base there are marks of wearing away by use. The other specimen is only fragmentary, but the flint has assumed the same characters. The edge is like that of Fig. 437; one face of the implement having been flat and the section wedge-shaped.

Fig. 471.—Fisherton. 1/2

The Drift deposits at Fisherton have long been known to geologists, and have been described by Sir Charles Lyell,[2] Sir Joseph Prestwich,[3] and others. They present a great similarity to the implement-bearing beds at Menchecourt, near Abbeville, as has been pointed out by Sir Joseph Prestwich;[4] and this circumstance led us to visit the spot in 1859, with a view of discovering works of man in the beds, though at that time our search was unrewarded.

It is needless for me here to describe the beds in detail: suffice it to say, that resting on a more highly inclined surface of chalk is a deposit, the upper portion of which forms the surface of the present slope on the northern side of the valley of the united Wiley and Nadder. It is in some places nearly 30 feet in thickness, but thins out
  1. "Flint Chips," p. 47. Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1865), vol. xxi. p. 252.
  2. Proc. Geol. Soc., vol. i. p. 25.
  3. Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1865), vol. xi. p. 101.
  4. Phil. Trans. (1860), p. 302.