ANTIQUITY OF THE RIVER-DRIFT.
In order to discuss this subject, it will be necessary to enter into
some geological details; as it is evident that the least antiquity
that can be assigned to the implements is that of the beds of gravel,
sand, and clay in which they occur, and of which, in fact, they may
be regarded as constituent portions. Whether they may not in some
instances have been derived from beds of even greater antiquity
than those in which they are found, is another question, which will
subsequently be dealt with; but any one examining the condition of
the beds in which the implements occur, will have no difficulty in
seeing that they have not been disturbed since their deposit; while
in most cases, the colouring of the worked and of the unworked flints
they contain is similar, and affords proof of their having long lain
together under the same conditions.
That the containing beds have, at all events in most cases, been
deposited by fresh water, and not by the sea, is proved by the
occasional abundance in them of land and freshwater shells, and the
absence of those of marine origin; while their general analogy with
the flood deposits of existing rivers, and their almost universal
contiguity to them, raises the strongest possible presumption of their
existence being due to river action. At the risk of being thought to
have prejudged the question, I have, therefore, made no scruple in
treating them hitherto as being River-drift. To show that for the
most part they are so in reality, and to enable the reader to form
some opinion of the manner in which deposits originally formed in and
about the beds of streams or lakes, now in some cases occupy the tops
of hills, and cover the slopes of valleys, far above the level of any
existing neighbouring river, or even at a considerable distance from
any stream, it will, I think, be well to state a hypothetical case;
and then to compare the actual phenomena with it, and see how far they
correspond. |663|
Should it appear that with a certain given configuration of the land
surface, a certain character of rock, a certain climate, and a certain
number of years, certain effects must, judging from all analogy, have
been produced; and should we in the case of these ancient Drifts find
some of the conditions to have existed, and all the phenomena to be in
accordance with the hypothesis, we may with some confidence assume that
the other original conditions existed also; and build up a connected
theory which will account for the whole of the observed results, and
will also throw light on their causes, as well as on the duration of
time necessary for their operation to have produced such effects. In
stating the case, I lay no claim to originality, and do little more
than follow in the steps of Sir Charles Lyell, Sir Joseph Prestwich,
and others who have made a study of the character and effects of
fluviatile action.
As it is in the gravels of Chalk districts that Palæolithic implements
have been chiefly, though by no means exclusively, found, let us
base the hypothesis on the assumption that an extensive and almost
horizontal area of Upper Chalk, covered for the most part with beds of
marine clay and shingle, gradually rose from beneath the sea, to an
elevation of 200 feet above its level. Let us also assume that the land
was elevated at a rate far in excess of that at which any subaërial
action, such as rain, frost, or snow, would enable a river flowing over
it to excavate its valley to the depth of 200 feet in the space of
time required for its elevation to that height. Let us further assume,
that the winter climate was somewhat more rigorous than that which at
present prevails in this country, and that there was a considerably
greater annual rainfall. We may also, for the purposes of the argument,
take the position of the coast-line as permanent, instead of its
constantly receding in consequence of the eroding power of the sea upon
the cliffs.
Let us now see what would theoretically be the effect produced by
subaërial causes on the river-valleys in this area during an indefinite
number of centuries.
Under ordinary circumstances, and with our present amount of rainfall,
there is no geological formation less liable to floods than the Chalk,
or at all events, its upper portion. It is of so absorbent a nature
that it is only in the extraordinary event of the ground being hard
frozen at the time of a heavy fall of rain, or of a rapid thaw of snow;
or of some inches of rain falling in the course of a few hours, that
the soil is unable to absorb the water as fast as it is delivered upon
it. The moisture when once in the soil is |664| either carried off
again by evaporation and vegetation, or descends to a point at which
the chalk is saturated with water, which is, however, constantly being
drained off by springs along the valleys. This body of water has been
termed “the subterranean reservoir” in the Chalk. The consequence of
this absorbent power of the soil is that the streams and rivers in a
Chalk country are not liable to floods, and moreover that their flow
is but little affected at the time by rain; they being almost entirely
dependent on perennial springs, which, during the driest of summers,
still continue to deliver the water that in the course of the preceding
winter, or even previously, has accumulated in the body of the Chalk.
The surface of the “subterranean reservoir” in the Chalk is by no
means level, but always presents a gradient towards the point at which
the springs are delivering its contents, so that within a chalk-hill
forming a watershed between two streams there is what may be termed a
hill of subterranean water, the summit of which need not, and often
does not, correspond with the apparent watershed on the surface. The
angle of the water-surface gradient depends principally on two factors,
the degree of friction in passing through the chalk, and the amount of
rain that finds its way down from the surface.
The height of saturation varies much in different seasons, as is
evinced by the intermitting streams, often known as bournes,[2758]
which perhaps only flow for a few months once in every six or seven
years. Near the Chalk escarpment in Hertfordshire, at a spot several
miles distant from any stream, I have known this height of saturation,
as shown by the level of water in a deep well, to vary as much as 70
feet in the course of a single year. But with a greater rainfall than
at present, the Chalk might at all times be in a state of saturation
up to within a few feet of the surface; and this would be materially
assisted, were there no deep valleys in existence into which the
subterranean water could be delivered; as, of course, if the outfall
were raised, the level of permanent saturation would be raised
also. Were the Chalk in a less porous condition than at present, of
course also its absorbent powers would not be so great. Under the
circumstances, therefore, which have been supposed, the river-and
spring-water from a Chalk district would be delivered in a manner very
materially differing from that which at present prevails. The delivery
of water by springs would be but small in shallow valleys; and, indeed,
the only |665| important springs would be those along the sea-shore;
while irrespective of this, the greater rainfall would keep the soil so
saturated, that floods would be as readily produced by heavy storms of
rain as if the soil were the most unabsorbent of rocks. If after some
lapse of time the rainfall diminished, and the valleys were deepened,
so that the outlets for the springs were at a considerably lower level
than that of the principal area of the country, the case would be
altered, and the tendency to floods would be immediately reduced.
At the commencement of the state of things supposed in our hypothesis,
these outlets, with the exception of those on the sea-shore, would
be but little lower than the general surface of the country, which,
however, would not be perfectly plane. For it seems probable that the
waters of the retreating sea would, during the elevation of the tract
of land, form shallow channels, cutting down some little distance into
the clay or chalk; and thus, as it were, mark out a course along which
streams or rivers would flow, after the land was completely free from
the sea. In some places, perhaps, shallow lakes might be left, but
these also would have channels draining off their waters when they rose
above a certain elevation.
With a bare surface, such as a newly-elevated tract would expose, there
can be no doubt that the eroding power of heavy rains would be highly
effective; as may be seen at the present day in the far greater effects
of heavy showers on bare soil than on that which is protected by turf
and vegetation. At the same time, with a rigorous climate, such as that
supposed, the winter accumulation of snow and ice would be great, and
its thawing during the summer months would add enormously and rapidly
to the streams draining the area, which would in consequence have
great power to deepen and widen their channels. The outflows from the
lakes, if any such existed, would also be enlarged, while their upper
portions would be filled with material brought down by the streams, and
eventually they would be drained, with the exception of some channels
in their beds through which the streams would pass.
We may therefore readily suppose that in the course of no very great
interval of time, geologically speaking, a river-system for carrying
off the waters falling from the heavens, analogous in character to
those of the present day, but with shallower valleys, would be formed
on the surface of the elevated tract. Let us |666| suppose that while
this, as it may be termed, preliminary configuration of the surface
has been taking place, the land has become tenanted by various trees,
shrubs, and plants affording means of subsistence to different forms of
animal life; while the streams also have been occupied by colonies of
freshwater _testacea_; and let us now trace what would be the action of
the rivers. To use the words of Sir Charles Lyell,[2759] “when we are
speculating on the excavating force which a river may have exerted in
any particular valley, the most important question is, not the volume
of the existing stream nor the present levels of its channel, nor even
the nature of the rocks; but the probability of a succession of floods
at some period since the time when the valley may have been first
elevated above the sea.”
Now in the first place, all rivers whose banks are not artificially
protected, and whose channels are not kept clear, are of necessity more
liable to floods than those in civilized countries, which bear much
the same relation to rivers flowing through uncultivated lands, as
domesticated animals do to wild. We have, moreover, _ex hypothesi_, a
fruitful source of floods in a greater rainfall and in a more rigorous
winter climate. The marvellous effects of such floods in excavating
channels, and in transporting materials, can only be estimated by those
who have seen their results, or have studied the accounts given of
them. When we read of a small rivulet on the Cheviots,[2760] swollen
by heavy rain, having transported several thousand tons of gravel and
sand into the neighbouring plain, and having carried blocks of stone,
weighing upwards of half a ton, two miles down its course, while
another block weighing nearly two tons was transported the distance
of a quarter of a mile, we may form some conception of the effects of
even a flooded brook. The blocking of a stream by ice or fallen trees,
so as to keep back its waters, and thus form a lake, which is suddenly
drained by the breaking of the barrier; a heavy fall of rain; or a
rapid fall of snow on ground hard frozen, and therefore impervious, are
common causes of floods; and such as we may presume to have prevailed
in our hypothetical case. What, therefore, would be the effect of such
floods?
The first effect would no doubt be to cause the streams to overflow
their banks, and spread over the bottom of the valleys in which they
usually flowed. The shallower the valley the greater |667| probably
would be the sinuosities of the stream, and the wider would its waters
spread. The greater also would be the probability of the stream, on the
cessation of the flood, not returning to its original channel, which
might have become obliterated or filled up, but of its flowing along
some new course, it may be miles away from its former channel. Even
when not flooded so as to overflow their banks, rivers along which
a larger body of water flowed than there does at present, would, so
long as they were not confined within deep valleys, have a tendency
to wander over a much wider tract of country than that now occupied
by their valleys. The tendency of all rivers to produce sinuosities
in their course is well known; but Mr. Fergusson, in his excellent
paper on recent changes in the Delta of the Ganges,[2761] has called
attention to the fact that all rivers oscillate in curves, the extent
of which is directly proportionate to the quantity of water flowing
through them.
But rivers in a state of flood, or passing even at a moderate speed
over soft or incoherent soil, are always turbid, owing to the presence
in their waters of earthy matter which they are transporting towards
the sea. The character of the solid matter thus transported by water
in motion is entirely dependent on its velocity. A velocity of 300
yards per hour is sufficient to tear up fine clay; of 600 yards, fine
sand; of 1,200 yards, fine gravel; and of a little over two miles per
hour, to transport shivery angular stones of the size of an egg.[2762]
Considering the small velocity requisite to remove the finer particles
of the soil, and to retain them in suspension, a river such as has been
supposed, must have been excessively turbid, so long as any fine earthy
particles were accessible to its waters, or to those of the streamlets
delivering into it.
The amount of solid matter suspended in turbid water is greater than
might be imagined. Mr. A. Tylor has calculated that the detritus
carried down by the Ganges is equivalent to what would result from the
removal of soil a foot in depth over the whole of the area which it
drains in 1,791 years,[2763] and that brought down by the Mississippi
to one foot in 9,000 years. Other estimates fix this at one foot in
6,000 years, while the sediment contained in its stream has been
estimated at from 1∕1245 to 1∕1500 of the weight of the water.[2764]
Taking this latter proportion, an inch of rain |668| falling on a
square mile of ground, and flowing off it in a turbid state, would
carry with it at least forty-three tons of sediment; and were we
to assume an annual rainfall of fifty-four inches—which, though
exceptional, is by no means unknown even in the British Isles—about
2,300 tons of fine earthy matter would be removed from a square mile
of country in a single year. Taking a cubic yard of solid ground as
equal to a ton in weight, this would involve the removal of one foot
in depth from the surface in about 450 years. If, however, a portion
of the rainfall were delivered by springs, or fell on hard or rocky
ground, so as not to be rendered turbid, of course the effect would be
proportionally diminished. Sir Archibald Geikie[2765] has estimated
that practically, at the present day, the Thames (apart from about
450,000 tons of chalk and other matter carried away annually in
solution), lowers its basin at the rate of one foot in 11,740 years;
the Boyne, one foot in 6,700 years; the Forth, one foot in 3,111
years; and the Tay, one foot in 1,482 years. It is, however, with
water moving with far greater velocity than that merely sufficient
to keep fine sediment in suspension, that we have to deal in this
hypothetical case; and we may readily suppose the streams, at more or
less regular intervals, liable to violent floods, eroding the chalk and
the superimposed clays and gravels, and carrying with them not only
the finer particles and sand, but the pebbles, large and small, of the
gravel, and the flints washed out of the chalk.
Let us now consider what would be the condition of the surface of a
broad shallow valley, on the cessation of a flood such as that which
has been supposed. In certain parts removed from the main current, and
where the water had been nearly stationary, we should find deposits
of fine mud or clay; in others, where the water had still moved with
sufficient velocity to retain the clay and fine silt in suspension, the
heavier particles of sand would have accumulated; in others, again, the
smaller stones and pebbles; while near the main current, especially on
the inner side of any curves which it had made, and where of course
its velocity had been diminished, we should find the larger flints and
pebbles, probably to some extent intermixed with part of the finer
materials. In the beds of mud and sand, we should probably find the
shells of some of the molluscs inhabiting the waters, and also those
of terrestrial species, washed in from the inundated land surface, or
brought down from the banks of the tributary rivulets; while |669|
mixed among the larger pebbles we might expect to find any animal
bones that had been lying on the land contiguous to the stream, or any
of the larger and heavier objects of human workmanship, that would have
been carried off by such an inundation, had mankind been living on the
banks of the river.
Were men, or any of the larger animals overwhelmed and drowned by the
flood, it seems probable that, owing to the slight difference between
their specific gravity and that of water, they would eventually have
been carried down to the sea, unless by some means accidentally
arrested in their course, or carried into the more stagnant waters. In
either case, they would, on the waters subsiding, probably be exposed
on or near the surface, and not be imbedded in any of the deposits of
the stream. Assuming the existence at that time of a respect for the
dead, such as may be regarded as almost instinctive in man, any human
remains would be buried or otherwise disposed of, while the bones of
the other carcases would be left within reach of the waters, should
another flood occur.
At the mouth of the river, where it joined the sea, its excavating
power would be considerably greater than farther inland; for at first,
on account of the land having—as was presumed, in this hypothetical
case—risen faster than the river could excavate its valley, the stream
must have fallen as a cascade into the sea. This, by the cutting back
of the lip in such a soft rock as the Chalk, would soon be converted
into a rapid, where the greater velocity of the water would much add to
its erosive power; and, ere long, a mouth to the river would be formed,
which would soon become tidal. Before tracing the results that would
be due to this greater declivity of the river-bed in the immediate
neighbourhood of the sea, it will be well to consider what would be the
results of successively recurring floods, in the less inclined broad
shallow valley, on which we have been speculating.
There can be no doubt that with each succeeding flood the valley would
be deepened; and the fact of its being thus deepened would tend to make
it narrower, by restricting the windings of the river. We can, however,
hardly imagine that in this deepening process the whole of the deposits
spread by the former floods over the bottom and slopes of the valley
would be removed, but must acknowledge the extreme probability of some
portions of them having remained intact, especially those which were
left at the greatest distance from the course eventually taken by the
river |670| during its period of flood. When once they had been thus
left, the chances of their being again assailed by the stream would
become more and more remote with each successive flood; and though the
waters might reach some deposit of the larger pebbles formerly carried
down by the main stream, but now at a distance from it, yet they would
only belong to the more sluggish portions of the flood, and at first
might envelope them in beds of sand; and subsequently, when they were
only accessible to the more stagnant turbid waters, leave layer upon
layer of muddy silt or clay upon them. In forming the more loess-like
beds the action of the wind in transporting sand and dust might also
assist. In some cases, and especially at the extremity of curves, and
at the end of the tongue between two streams, the accumulation of one
period, though at a lower level than that of earlier date, might abut
upon it, or even become mingled with it, so that an almost continuous
coating of Drift-deposits might extend from the highest level to the
lowest.
The bulk, however, of the deposits of one inundation would be moved
by the next, or by one of those which subsequently recurred; and
stones, and pebbles, and other objects might thus be transported down
stream, from place to place, an indefinite number of times, and form
constituent parts of an indefinite number of gravelly beds along the
bottom of the flooded stream. They might, under some circumstances,
lie for a long period of years in some particular bed, in which they
would become stained by salts of iron or otherwise, and subsequently be
transported and re-deposited among unstained, or differently stained
pebbles. The angles of any flints thus transported from place to place
would also become rolled, as would, in like manner, those of bones or
teeth. In the same way, assuming, as we have done, that the surface
of the Chalk in the district was in part, or wholly, covered with
beds of marine clay and shingle, it is evident that in the earlier
deposits, when the river flowed at the higher level, and was, as it
were, commencing to excavate its valley, the proportion of the pebbles
derived from these beds to the flints washed out from the Chalk, would
be much greater than at a later period. For in the course of time the
river would have worked its way below the level of these upper beds,
and many of the pebbles at first deposited in its gravels would have
been disturbed, again and again, in their beds; on each disturbance
carried farther down the stream, and eventually so far as the sea or
the tidal portion of the river. At the same time the |671| river
itself would be principally excavating the Chalk which had been freed
from the marine shingle, and would therefore be forming the gravel in
its bed, for the most part, from flints derived from the Chalk.
In the same manner, pebbles brought from a distant part of the country,
and higher up the river, would eventually become more abundant in the
deposits near its mouth, than they were at the first. Still no amount
of transport of this kind could bring any pebbles into the bed of the
river, which did not, in some form or other, exist within its drainage
area.
Besides the transporting power of water, which by itself is, under
favourable circumstances, capable of producing considerable excavations
in a comparatively short period, there is another force at work, where,
as has been supposed in this case, the climate is severe, which not
only aids in the transport of pebbles and blocks of stone from one part
of the bed of a river to another, but is a fertile source of floods.
This is the formation of ground-ice. Sir Joseph Prestwich,[2766] in his
second “Memoir on the Flint Implement-bearing Beds,” has given numerous
instances of the transporting power of this agent, and shown the method
of its occurrence in running streams, when the cold suffices to reduce
the temperature of the water, and of the bed of the river itself, to
the freezing point. Under such circumstances a gravelly river bed—and
on mud alone, ice rarely forms—may become coated with ice, which being
lighter than water will, on acquiring certain dimensions, overcome the
forces which keep it at the bottom, and rise to the surface, carrying
with it all the loose materials to which it adhered.
M. Engelhardt,[2767] director of the forges at Niederbronn, in the
Vosges, has, perhaps, more minutely than any one else investigated
the causes of the formation of ground-ice; and to prevent its effects
in causing floods, actually removed each year from the bed of the
stream supplying the motive power to his works, the stones and other
extraneous bodies round which it was likely to form. His account of
the effects of ground-ice in causing floods in the upper part of the
Rhine and the Danube is worth transcribing. These two rivers having “a
rapid current, do not freeze, like the Seine, by being covered with a
plane and uniform stratum; they bear along large blocks of ice, which
cross and impinge upon one another, and becoming thus heaped together,
finally barricade the river. It is a grand spectacle, when the Rhine is
thus charged, |672| to see these countless drifts adjust themselves in
their relative position, where they unite by congelation, and convey
the idea of the fall of some mountain which has covered the plain with
rocks of every dimension. But it is not this accumulation of ice-drifts
in the Rhine which is of itself the cause of danger; it is, on the
contrary, the _débâcle_, or breaking-up, which is often productive of
calamitous consequences. When this _débâcle_ commences in the upper
part of the river, above the point where the latter is completely
frozen, the masses of ice, drifting with the current and unable to
pass, are hurled upon those already soldered together; thus an enormous
barrier is formed, which the water, arrested in its course, cannot pass
over, and hence overflows to the right and left, breaking the dykes,
inundating the plains, and spreading devastation and suffering, far and
near. The disasters caused by the _débâcles_ of the Rhine have taught
the riparian inhabitants to observe attentively the facts which may
serve them as a prognostic, and put them on their guard against the
irruption of the ice. It is thus that they have been led to observe
the _grund-eis_—that is to say, the ice formed at the bottom of the
rivers—for it is this ice which, in becoming detached from the bottom
and rising towards the surface, unites itself to the under surface of
the masses already in place, and by further embarrassing the discharge,
exposes the country to inundation.”
Another most effective agent in transporting the pebbles and larger
blocks of stone along the course of rivers is shore-ice. During a
severe winter masses of thick ice are formed which enclose the larger
stones on the bottom of the river towards its edge; these masses are
dislodged and carried away by subsequent floods, whether arising from
rapid thaws or from rain higher up the river, or from accumulations of
ice, such as those described, having formed a temporary barrier across
the stream through which the pent-up water eventually burst and carried
all before it. The lateral pressure of such dams of ice, with a large
body of water behind, must be enormous; and we can readily conceive
their crumbling-up any beds of gravel on the banks of the rivers
against which they might happen to abut.
But there is still another way in which a severe climate, such as has
been supposed, would act upon the rocks, namely, by their being rent
and disintegrated by frost. This has been well pointed out by Sir
Joseph Prestwich,[2768] who has cited numerous instances |673| of its
effects, and mentions having seen a low cliff of chalk, 15 feet high,
form a talus or heap of fragments at its foot, 6 feet broad and 4 feet
high, in the course of an ordinary winter.
As I am by no means attempting an exhaustive geological essay on this
subject, which is indeed hardly needed, I think that enough has been
said to show that under conditions such as have been supposed in this
hypothetical case, the great subaërial agents—rain and snow, ice and
frost—would, in the course of time, enable rivers to excavate their
valleys to an almost indefinite extent. Indeed, one can conceive the
process being carried on, until what had been rivers became estuaries
or arms of the sea; or, until a large island once traversed by rivers
became converted into several smaller islands, by the cutting back, and
subsequent junction, of its various river-valleys.
Without, however, carrying the excavatory process to such an extreme,
let us now consider what would be the condition of our hypothetical
river-valley when excavated to a depth of say 100 feet, at a point
about midway between its source and the sea. We have already seen
that at an earlier period—when the river ran at a higher level by 100
feet than that it is now supposed to occupy—its valley must have been
broader, and its bottom strewn with detritus of various kinds, in the
shape of gravel, sand, and clay, and, it may be, some larger blocks
of stone. In the further process of excavating by agents such as have
been described, it has also been seen, that it is in the highest degree
improbable that the succeeding floods and other transporting agents
should have entirely removed and obliterated the deposits left by those
of earlier date. We should, therefore, expect to find, at various
heights on the slope of the valley, remains of such beds of detritus,
and especially at points such as the junctions of affluents with the
river, and the inner side of the bends it makes in its course, which
would naturally be the least exposed to the violent invasion of the
stream. In these beds we might reasonably search for the remains of
the surface and freshwater life of the period; and had there been any
amelioration of climate during the process of excavation, a larger
proportion of silt and clay, and less of coarse gravel, in the lower
and more recent deposits, would testify to the fact. Looking also
at the power possessed by rivers of levelling the bottoms of their
valleys, during their successive changes of course, we might expect to
find in places, tracts of these old valley-bottoms left as terraces
on the slopes of the more deeply excavated valleys. The |674| upper
surface of any such relics of a former condition of things would, of
course, be covered with _débris_ and rain-washed clay, brought down
from a higher level on the slopes, but on digging into them their true
nature might be recognized.
Nearer the sea, and farther up the valleys, the state of things would
be somewhat different. At the mouth of the river, as has already been
pointed out, the declivity of the stream would have been greater, and
its excavating power therefore increased. If, as originally assumed,
the bed of the river, when the land was first elevated, was, at a mile
distant from the sea, 200 feet above its level, the declivity would be
200 feet to the mile; when the 200 feet level was 4 miles from the sea,
the slope would still be 50 feet to the mile; at 10 miles distance it
would still be 20 feet, and it would not be until the 200 feet level
was 15 miles from the sea that the ordinary slope of the bottom of the
Chalk valleys of Hertfordshire, which is about 13 feet 6 inches to the
mile, would be attained. In the meantime, however, if the sea were
encroaching on the shore, or were, owing to the nature of the rocks,
widening and extending that portion of the river subject to tidal
influences, the actual point of contact with the sea would be carried
far inland, and—assuming the rock traversed to be of one uniform nature
and hardness—it would be long before the river towards its mouth
ceased to have a greater declivity than nearer its source. We see,
then, that the amount of excavation effected by the river, during the
time necessary for the deepening of the valley by 100 feet, at a point
midway in its course, would, near the sea, have been twice as great,
or 200 feet. We should, therefore, expect to find beds of the same
age as those which, at the middle of its course, were 100 feet above
the river, at relatively twice that elevation near the mouth; and any
intermediate beds would also be proportionally higher above the then
existing stream, than contemporary beds farther up the valley.
At the heads of the valleys, the excavation would, on the contrary,
have been less than towards the middle of the course of the river;
partly owing to there always being less water present, partly to the
reduced liability to floods, and partly to other causes. The heads of
the valleys would, however, be constantly receding in all cases, and
their retrogression would in most instances be aided by springs issuing
from them. In cases where, from some geological cause, the heads of two
valleys running in opposite directions receded in the same line, we can
readily imagine their |675| meeting eventually at the watershed, and
cutting through it so as to form apparently but a single valley, though
on either side of the highest portion of its bottom, the waters flowed
in opposite directions.
The mention of springs recalls another denuding agent, which has
been already discussed in connection with caverns, and seems to have
assisted in moulding the surface of the country and in excavating the
valleys. It is well known that the water flowing in the streams of a
chalk-country contains, in solution, a considerable amount of chalk,
or rather, of bi-carbonate of lime; the water on entering the ground
deriving a certain amount of carbonic acid from the decaying vegetable
matter contained in the soil, and when thus charged, becoming capable
of dissolving a corresponding quantity of the chalk. The amount is
usually 17 or 18 grains in the gallon; and even in the Thames at
London, not a purely chalk-stream, there are about 14 grains. Taking
the proportion of 17 grains to the gallon, it will be found by
calculation that every inch of rain which falls over a square mile of
chalk-country, and passes off by springs, carries with it, in solution,
and without in the slightest degree interfering with its brightness,
no less than from 15 to 16 tons of solid chalk. The quantity of rain
which thus finds its way to the springs has, as already stated, been
ascertained by experiment to be as much as 9 inches per annum in
average seasons, giving an amount of about 140 tons of chalk thus
annually carried away from each square mile of country at the present
day; so that the loss is still going on at the rate of 140,000 tons of
dry chalk to each square mile in every ten centuries.
The lowering of level from this cause is probably not uniform over the
whole surface. For the acidulated water sinking into the chalk on the
top of a hill, and descending one or two hundred feet before reaching
the surface of “the subterranean reservoir,”[2769] might, in its almost
vertical passage, become saturated with carbonate of lime, and only
render the chalk through which it passed somewhat more porous, without
materially affecting the level of its surface. On the other hand, that
absorbed in a valley would probably, to some extent, acquire the chalk
which it eventually held in solution during its almost horizontal
passage to the point of its delivery by springs; and as this would be
at no great depth, the abstraction of solid matter would become more
perceptible on the surface, so that the level of the valley would be
lowered more |676| rapidly than that of the hill. With an increased
rainfall, such as we have supposed, this removal of solid matter by
solution must have been considerable; but still nothing in comparison
with that effected by the other denuding agencies which have been
mentioned. It is, moreover, to be borne in mind that, as will shortly
be seen, until the valleys had been excavated to a considerable depth,
the amount of water delivered by the springs would, with the same
rainfall, have been far less than at present. The springs would also,
to some extent, have been affected by the chalk being in a less porous
condition than it now is, owing to its not having lost so much of its
substance by the chemical action which has just been described.
Before comparing the actual phenomena with the results of the
conditions which have been assumed, it will be well to say a few
words as to the probable effects of an amelioration of climate, and
a diminution in the rainfall, upon a valley already excavated to
an average depth of 100 feet, such as has already been described.
It is evident that any transport of materials due to the action of
ice, by floating loose stones and pebbles from one part of the bed
of the stream to another, would be materially diminished; as would
also the number of floods resulting from the thawing of the winter
accumulation of ice and snow, and from rain falling on frozen ground.
The only remaining principal cause for floods would be the heavy fall
of rain during storms or wet seasons; but here, a comparatively slight
alteration in the conditions will have made a vast difference in the
results. When the valleys were once excavated to a certain depth, the
level of the springs or outfalls carrying off the accumulation of
water in the absorbent soil, would be proportionally reduced, as would
also be the line of permanent saturation in the chalk. The effect of
this would be that during any dry interval, the water contained in the
upper part of the chalk would gravitate downwards, until it reached the
subterranean reservoir of water saturating the chalk; and thus leave
the surface soil in the same absorbent condition as it is at present,
and capable of receiving a much greater amount of rain than formerly,
before any would flow from off its surface.
Even with a constant and excessive rainfall, the result of the
continued deepening of the valleys would be to cause more and more
to flow off by the springs, and less from the surface; but with the
valleys once deepened, a small diminution in the rainfall, or its more
even distribution over the whole year, might cause the |677| flow from
the surface almost entirely to cease, and allow the whole to be carried
off by the springs. Whenever this was the case, any great and rapid
excavation of the valleys from rain alone would be rendered almost
impossible; and with no extreme reduction in the total amount of annual
flow of the rivers, yet by their originating in perennial springs
subject to but slight variations, and from their being no longer to
any extent immediately connected with the surface drainage, there
would cease to be that immense difference between their maximum and
minimum volume, which must have formerly existed. The result of this
comparatively uniform flow would be a great diminution in the tendency
of any river to change its bed, and even if it occasionally received
a great accession of water, it would find relief by overflowing into
the wide valley due to its former more violent action. In the less
inclined portions of its valley, the parts now almost deserted by the
stream would be favourable for vegetation, such as would result in
the formation of peat, and any occasional overflowing of the banks
might, owing to the less torrential character of the inundations, have
a tendency to fill up and level these marginal spaces rather than to
excavate them deeper. The deposits of gravel, sand, and clay at the low
levels would also be more continuous than those at the higher.
In tracing the effects of subaërial action in forming valleys, I have
assumed the subsoil or rock in which they were formed to have been
chalk, as it is principally in valleys in the Chalk that the gravels
containing Palæolithic implements are known to occur. This is probably
on account of the greater natural abundance of flints in such valleys,
which of course led to implements being there chipped out in greater
numbers, as well as to their being less cared for, from their being
more easily replaced than they would be where flint was scarce. The
effects on other soft and absorbent soils would not materially differ
from those on chalk. On clay, the general amount of denudation would
perhaps be greater, but the valleys broader, and with less inclined
slopes on their sides. In a clay country we might, I think, expect to
find the old river-gravels not unfrequently at greater distances from
the existing streams than in a chalk-district.
It must, however, be borne in mind that in such a country the materials
from which river-gravels can be formed are usually absent, and can only
have been derived from older superficial beds, or brought from Chalk
higher up the valley. In some |678| valleys, partly or almost entirely
excavated in Pre-Glacial times, gravels belonging to the Glacial
Period exist, and tend to complicate the question of the more recent
River-drifts.
Any theory of the valleys having been excavated at some remote period
in some unknown manner, and then having been filled with gravels
derived from an unknown source, and again re-excavated, presents such
difficulties that, to my mind, it cannot well be entertained. If,
however, such a view be accepted, it seems to add to the time necessary
for the excavation of the valleys; as much of the rainfall might find a
subterranean vent at a low level through the gravel lining the bottom
of the filled-up valleys, and thus keep the upper soil in a more
absorbent condition and therefore less liable to erosion.
I must not, however, dwell too long upon this hypothetical case, which
perhaps is such as may not have found an absolutely exact analogue
in nature, but which may yet, I think, be accepted as a fair typical
example of the results which, under the supposed conditions, must,
judging from what we know of the action of subaërial causes, in all
probability have ensued.
Let us now compare the phenomena as we find them in the gravel-beds of
our present river-valleys, with those of the hypothetical case, and we
shall, I think, find them coincide in a remarkable manner.
In the first place, the constituent parts of the gravels of the beds
of Drift containing Palæolithic implements are always, petrologically,
such as are to be found in the existing river-basins, as they must
also of necessity have been in the hypothetical case. This fact, which
holds good both in France and England, has been insisted on by Sir
Joseph Prestwich, and such insistency cannot be too often reiterated.
Where old superficial marine deposits of the Glacial or any other
period, consisting of pebbles of various ages and origins, exist within
a river-basin, there also will such pebbles be found in its gravels,
but the originally derivative character of the pebbles prevents any
strong argument being founded upon their presence. Where, however,
no such beds exist, the case can clearly be made out. Unless a river
traverses a granite or slate country, no granite or slate is found in
the Quaternary gravels of its valley: unless it passes over Oolite,
Purbeck, or Greensand, no blocks or pebbles of these rocks occur. This
fact suffices to prove that the gravels are due to some local cause,
such as river-action, and not to any general submergence or supposed
|679| “wave of translation,” which would of necessity bring in
materials not to be found in the existing basins.
That the various deposits resulting from a flooded river, should
contain some of the land and freshwater shells, and animal bones of the
period, is, as has been shown, most natural. Such shells and remains
are of constant occurrence in the Quaternary gravels. If they prove
nothing else, their evidence as to the freshwater origin of the beds
must be accepted as conclusive. It is true that in all cases such land
and freshwater remains have not as yet been found; but if in a dozen
instances we find beds of a certain character containing these remains,
and also flint instruments wrought by the hand of man; and in a dozen
other instances, similar beds in analogous positions, also containing
implements of the same kind, but, so far as is known, no such organic
remains; we are justified in regarding both sets of beds as due to
the same original cause, and in believing that the organic remains,
if actually absent, are so from some accidental circumstance. We may
indeed accept the implements as being truly characteristic fossils of
a certain class of deposits. The character of the beds, consisting as
they do, of gravel, sand, and fine silt, brick-earth or loess, and
their manner of deposition, are also absolutely in accordance with the
river-hypothesis.
On the higher levels above but near the valleys, we frequently find
these beds at a considerable distance from the existing stream; we
find them at all levels on the flanks of the valleys, and occasionally
almost at their bottom, or even below it. In these lower beds, the
implements, if of the same form and character as those in the upper
beds nearer the source, are, in accordance with what would be the case
under the hypothesis, very frequently much rolled and water-worn.
The beds at the low level are also usually, so far as the gravel is
concerned, of a finer character than those at the high level, and
present a greater abundance of sand and brick-earth. They seem, in
fact, indicative of some such amelioration of climate as that supposed.
Looking again at the position of the deposits with regard to the
neighbouring rivers, we find them, as a rule, exactly in such positions
as might have been expected, had their presence been due to the
action of a stream in the process of excavating its valley, in such
a manner as that described. So constantly is this the case, that a
practised geologist, from a mere inspection of the Ordnance map, could
with almost certainty predict where deposits |680| of River-drift
would occur, of such an age and character as to be likely to contain
Palæolithic implements. In more than one instance, indeed, as has
already been mentioned, the probability of certain gravels containing
these relics of human art, was pointed out before their actual
discovery.
These are some, but by no means all, of the points in which the actual
phenomena agree with those which must have resulted from river-action
such as suggested in the hypothesis, and they are alone sufficient to
raise the strongest presumption that the phenomena are due to such
action, and that the theory that would account for them in this manner,
cannot be far from the truth.
I will, however, now pass in review some of the principal localities
where Palæolithic implements have been found in Drift-deposits, and see
what other points of accordance, and what difficulties, if any, they
present.
Taking first the basin of the Ouse and its tributaries, we find
at Biddenham, near Bedford, one of the principal localities for
Drift-implements, the gravel on the inner side of a bold sweep made
by the river, and from forty to fifty feet above it. Its constituent
stones are all derived either from the rocks in the neighbourhood, or
from the Glacial beds which cap them, and which have evidently been cut
through by the river. Throughout the beds are seams containing numerous
freshwater shells, mixed with some derived from the land and from
marshy places; numerous bones of terrestrial mammals also occur. In the
valley of the Lark remains of such shells occur at Bury St. Edmunds, in
the same beds as the implements. Farther down, at Icklingham, the beds
at Rampart Field cap a rounded knoll on the inner side of a curve of
the river, which appears, however, to have somewhat straightened its
course since they were deposited. Below Icklingham, the whole surface
of the country, and its drainage, have been so much modified by the
invasion of the sea, which produced the wide level of the Fens, that we
should expect to find any deposits of an ancient river, which existed
before that great planing down of the adjacent country, in somewhat
anomalous positions.
I need not here enter into the history of the origin of the Fens; it is
enough to say that the subsoil of almost the whole district consists
of clays, belonging either to the Oolitic or Cretaceous series, and
unprotected by any rocks of a more durable nature towards the sea,
which has thus been enabled to invade it. The presence of the sea is
attested in various localities by marine |681| remains. _Buccinum_,
_Trophon_, _Littorina_, _Cardium_, and _Ostrea_ are abundant in the
gravel at March.[2770] In the valley of the Nene, near Peterborough,
oysters and other marine shells occur, mixed with those of land and
freshwater origin. In Whittlesea Mere, remains of walrus and seal, and
sea shells are found; while so far south as Waterbeach, less than ten
miles from Cambridge, remains of whale have been discovered.
The old land-surface having been thus destroyed, we cannot with
certainty trace the course of the ancient representative of the river
Lark, below Mildenhall; it seems, however, to have proceeded northwards
by Eriswell and Lakenheath, to join the Little Ouse. At Eriswell, a
gravel of the same character as that near Mildenhall, occurs on the
slope of the hill towards the Fen; but in it, as yet, few implements
are recorded to have been found. At Lakenheath, however, they occur in
the gravel now capping the hill overlooking the Fen, as well as on the
slope.
Owing to the distance of these beds from any existing rivers, the
late Mr. Flower[2771] found great difficulty in reconciling them with
any theory which would account for their presence by the action of
rivers. If, however, we regard the great denudation of the Fen country
as subsequent in date to the deposit of the gravels, it appears to me
that any difficulty on this point vanishes. That this denudation was in
fact, at all events in part, subsequent to the deposit of the gravels,
is proved by the position of the beds at Shrub Hill, which there cap a
small area of Gault, and which, being above the general level of the
Fens, can hardly have been deposited in the position they now occupy,
when the configuration of the country was at all like what it now is.
Such beds must, on the contrary, have been deposited in the bottom of a
valley; and it appears as if in this case, by their superior hardness
to the clay around them, or from some other accidental cause, they had
protected this small spot from tidal action, which in the adjacent
river, previously to the construction of Denver Sluice, extended nearly
as far as Brandon.
The rolled condition of so many of the implements found at Shrub Hill,
proves that they must have been transported some distance by water,
from beds of a higher level.
Turning now to the existing valley of the Little Ouse, we find, at
Brandon Down, the gravel occupying the summit of a high ridge of land
almost at right angles to the present course of the |682| river. It is
difficult to account for its occurring in this position, unless we are
to suppose that at an early period before the complete denudation of
the Fen country, and while the Boulder Clay still covered the surface
of the Chalk, and the level of saturation was higher in the latter
than at present, a tributary stream, possibly the old representative
of the Lark, flowed into the Little Ouse near this spot, and the
gravel was deposited on the tongue of land near the confluence. The
country drained by the Little Ouse seems at one time to have been
almost covered by Glacial deposits, including beds of shingle, composed
for the greater part of quartzite pebbles. The beds at Brandon Down
are nearer the sea than any analogous beds towards the source of the
stream, and occupy a higher position relatively to the existing river,
being 90 feet above it. If they resulted from river-action, they
would, in accordance with the hypothesis, be among the oldest of the
river-deposits; and would, as indeed they do, consequently contain a
far larger proportion of the quartzite pebbles than those of somewhat
later age and farther up the valley.
At Bromehill, where the drift is but a few feet higher than the present
level of the stream, and would, in accordance with the hypothesis,
belong to a later period, there are but few of these quartzite pebbles,
but the gravel contains a very large proportion of rolled fragments of
chalk, which, so far as I have observed, are absent in the probably
older beds, at Brandon Down; the implements also are frequently
much rolled and water-worn. This fact is also in accordance with
the hypothesis, for the river at the time of the formation of these
lower beds would, in the lower part of its course, have completely
cut through the Glacial deposits above the Chalk, and would have been
attacking the Chalk itself. There is also an abundance of rolled chalk
in the Shrub Hill beds, which seem to be of much the same age. In
the valley of the Lark, the rolled chalk pebbles occur in gravels at
a somewhat greater elevation. Higher up the Little Ouse, the gravel
at Santon Downham occupies the slope of a hill on the inner side of
a great sweep of the river, while at Thetford, the beds form a long
terrace by the side of the stream, with a rather abrupt slope towards
it. Here also, land and freshwater shells have been found in the
gravel, but neither these nor implements have as yet been observed in
the gravels of the valley of the Little Ouse, or of its tributaries,
above Thetford.
Tracing the main stream back to its source, we find that both |683|
the Little Ouse and the Waveney, the one flowing westward, and
the other eastward, take their rise in the same valley, and within
a few hundred yards of each other, at Lopham Ford. With regard to
the elevation of this spot above the sea-level, there has been some
diversity of opinion. On the Greenough map, published by the Geological
Society, it is erroneously stated at 15 feet; and Mr. Flower,[2772]
in arguing in favour of his views, that the beds at Brandon are not
connected with any river-action, assigns it a height of only 23 feet
above high-water mark. That this also is erroneous can be readily
shown, for Sir Joseph Prestwich[2773] has recorded the level of the
Waveney at Moor Bridge, near Hoxne, ten miles below its source, as
being 59 feet 9 inches above high-water mark at Yarmouth. Mr. Alger,
of Diss, who has surveyed the district, informs me that the level at
Lopham Ford is 75 feet 3 inches above high-water mark; and as by actual
survey he found the fall, from the head of the Waveney to Hoxne Mill,
to be upwards of 15 feet, there can be little doubt of this level being
approximately correct. Still, the gravel beds at Brandon being upwards
of 90 feet above high-water mark, there can be no doubt of their being
at an elevation actually above the source of the present stream; and
at first sight, this fact appears difficult of reconciliation with
the view that they are due to fluviatile action. Without, however,
calling to aid any possible oscillations in the level of the land,
varying in amount at different parts of the course of the stream, an
examination of the local geological conditions suffices to throw light
on the causes, why the erosion of the land at the sources of the Little
Ouse and Waveney has been abnormally great; so that not only have the
streams excavated back the heads of their respective valleys until they
have met, but their inclination at the upper part of their course,
instead of being as usual in chalk countries at the rate of 12 to 18
feet in a mile, is only about 18 inches.
The general level of the country for some distance around Lopham Ford
is at least 100 feet above it, and the Chalk and the superimposed beds
are for the most part covered with a deposit of impervious Boulder
Clay, through which the valleys of the Little Ouse and of the Waveney
have been cut. But, at the time of the last emergence of this district
of country from beneath the sea, this clay must have been continuous
across the tract since |684| excavated, so that at that time the
sources of the streams flowing in either direction must have been at
least 100 feet above their present level, and 80 feet above the gravels
at Brandon Down, and probably at some distance apart. That the heads of
the two streams should have cut back their valleys, and at last have
met, appears to be due to the fact that, previously to the covering
of Boulder Clay being deposited, there existed an old depression in
the Chalk, which had been filled with laminated sandy clays, either
Glacial or belonging to what is known by geologists as the Chillesford
series. These being more easily acted on than the chalk by running
water, led the streams to follow the course of the old depression which
they filled, and it is to their presence that the small inclination of
the upper part of the valley of the Waveney appears to be mainly due.
Another cause is to be found in the country near Lopham Ford being
coated with clay, so that the streams, even at the present day, exhibit
the remarkable phenomenon of being liable to floods at their source. An
isolated hill, about 30 feet high, formed of the laminated beds, and
with a slight capping of gravel, still remains in the valley of the
Waveney, near Redgrave, to show the nature of the beds which have been
removed.
The only spot in the valley of the Waveney, where as yet Palæolithic
implements have been found, is at Hoxne, where the summit of the
beds is about 111 feet above high-water mark at Yarmouth, and though
at a higher level than the existing source of the Waveney, probably
much below the level of its earlier source. Since the beds were
deposited, the surface of the ground in the neighbourhood has been
completely remodelled by subaërial denudation, and they now lie in a
trough on the summit of a hill,[2774] both sides of which slope down
to small streams which are tributary to the Waveney, and are still
at work cutting out their valleys in the Boulder Clay. The beds in
which the implements occur are beyond all doubt of freshwater origin,
being full of freshwater shells. The trough in which they lie, has
much the appearance of the deserted bed of a river, silted up under
more lacustrine conditions. Such a change in the position of a
river-bed, and its subsequent infilling, is quite in accordance with
the hypothetical case of river-action, especially when, as here, its
eventual valley had not been distinctly carved out.
The phenomena at Hoxne have lately been more fully examined |685| by
Mr. Clement Reid,[2775] by means of grants from the British Association
and the Royal Society; and the views that I expressed in 1872 have been
in the main corroborated. The deposits are proved to be distinctly
more recent than the Chalky Boulder Clay of the district, and there
is evidence of oscillations in climate since the valley was formed in
which the lacustrine beds were laid down, and before any Palæolithic
implements or the brick-earth containing them had been deposited.
The beds at High Lodge, near Mildenhall, are of somewhat similar
character to those at Hoxne, though occupying a depression on the
slope of a hill, instead of a trough on the summit; and were probably
deposited under nearly the same circumstances, though as yet no
testaceous remains have been found in them.
Turning south, to the valley of the Thames, we find the gravel-beds
at Acton and Ealing, though occasionally at a higher level, forming
a terrace 80 or 90 feet above Ordnance Datum, along the side of the
broad valley, at a height of some 50 feet above the general surface
of the valley. In the bottom of this are spread out other beds of
gravel, sand, and brick-earth, exactly as might be expected on the
river-hypothesis; while at Highbury New Park, and Hackney Down, we
have beds of the same character, which contain land and freshwater
shells and flint implements, at a height, in some cases, of 100 feet
above Ordnance Datum. The presence of these beds in such a position,
consisting, as they do at Highbury, of sand and brick-earth, such as
can only have been deposited in comparatively tranquil water, involves
the necessity either of a large lake having existed at the spot, or of
its having been within access of the flood-waters of the river. But
either of these conditions is impossible, unless we are to suppose that
the lower part of valley of the Thames, in which London now stands, was
at that time non-existent. It must, therefore, have been subsequently
excavated. But again, at lower levels at Hackney Down, and in Gray’s
Inn Lane, we have gravels of a more distinctly fluviatile character,
and also containing palæolithic implements. The existence, character,
and position of all these beds is, therefore, perfectly in accordance
with the theory of the excavation of the valley by the river, and
it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to account for them
satisfactorily in any other manner.
At Hitchin beds of much the same character occur, which there also are
newer than the Boulder Clay of the district. |686|
At Caddington the discoveries are quite consistent with the
hypothesis, but point to a period when the excavations of the existent
valleys had made but little progress.
Higher up the Thames valley at Reading and at Oxford the phenomena are
all in accordance with the hypothesis; at the former place the river
has deepened its valley to the extent of at least 100 feet.
The discoveries in the gravels capping the North Downs and those
made near Ightham and Limpsfield in the transverse valley at the
foot of the Downs, seem at first sight difficult to reconcile with
any river-theory. But assuming that the beds capping the hills were
at one time continuous with others in the Wealden area, and that the
transverse valley was produced by denudation at a later date, the
difficulties disappear, though the time requisite to effect such
superficial changes may seem to be immense.
Passing by other localities where implements have been found in the
valley of the Thames, such as Swanscombe and Northfleet, though it
may be observed that the gravels in which they have occurred are, on
the river-theory, exactly where they might have been expected to be
present, we come to the beds near Reculver, where they have been found
in large numbers. Looking, however, at the enormous encroachment of
the sea, even within the last few centuries, upon the soft cliffs of
sand and clay at that spot, it is difficult to form any satisfactory
idea of the conditions under which a river may have flowed near the
spot at a remote period, or of the position of the coast at the time.
Where, however, as is here the case, a large tract of land has been
washed away, which must of necessity have had its system of superficial
drainage by streams, and may possibly have had rivers passing through
it, which now, owing to the altered conditions, find their way into
the sea at a point much nearer their source than formerly, we should
expect to find on the top of the cliffs traces of the former state of
things; and where any portion of the slope of an old valley remained,
to see its gravels, though now so close to the sea, at a height far
above its level. Still, it is hard to say whether the implement-bearing
beds at Reculver are connected with the old valley of the Thames, or
with that of some other stream which has now disappeared, but of which
the upper portion is to be traced in the Swale, which now separates the
Isle of Sheppey from Kent, and which appears to afford, in its junction
with the West Swale and Long Reach, an instance of two valleys being
gradually eroded inland until they met. The beds may even be connected
with the |687| valley of the Stour; for it is by no means impossible
that the present second and northward mouth of that stream may run
along the valley of an old river, which originally flowed southward
past Reculver, and joined the old representative of the Stour,
somewhere to the south of where is now the village of Sarre.
The great tract of gravel which at some little distance inland fringes
the East Essex coast, between Shoeburyness[2776] and the Blackwater
estuary, may also be connected with some old river; but as yet no
well-defined implements or freshwater shells have been found in
it, though Mr. Whitaker has discovered shells near Southend. The
fluvio-marine deposits at a lower level at Clacton, just north of
the Blackwater, like those at Chislet, in Kent, seem to belong to a
somewhat later period, when the rivers had so far deepened their beds
as to have become tidal.
Though no land or freshwater shells have as yet been found in the
gravel beds near Canterbury, yet their position is quite in accordance
with the theory of the excavation of the valley by river-action; and
here as elsewhere the implements from the lower beds are often much
water-worn.
The superficial deposits of the south of Hampshire and the Isle of
Wight, and in a lesser degree those of the neighbouring counties,
have been fully discussed in an able paper by Mr. T. Codrington,
F.G.S.,[2777] though since it was published a large number of
implements has been found near Bournemouth, Barton, and Hordwell. He
has pointed out that the whole of the New Forest, between Poole and
Southampton Water, appears at one time to have been an extensive plain,
with a gradual slope to the south, very generally covered with gravel
and brick-earth. This has since been in great part cut up, and over
large areas entirely removed by the action of the streams and rivers,
which latter flow in well-defined valleys.
The formation of this table-land and the overlying deposit of gravel
which, in places far inland, is found at a height of more than 420 feet
above the present sea-level, appears to be due to marine action, though
as yet no marine remains have been discovered in it. Sea-shells have,
however, been found by Sir Joseph Prestwich[2778] in an old sea-beach
at Waterbeach, near Goodwood, and similar beds, at Avisford Bridge,
near Arundel, occur at a height of 80 or 100 feet above the sea. We
seem, then, here to have evidence |688| of a considerable elevation
of the land from beneath the sea; and as the gravel in places overlies
late Tertiary beds, this must have taken place at a comparatively late
geological epoch. When rivers run through a tract of country covered
with a marine gravel of this kind, itself apparently deposited in a
somewhat contracted area, it is, in the absence of organic remains,
difficult to distinguish the reconstructed gravels resulting from
fluviatile action, from the older beds. Any one, however, who is
acquainted with the country, or who will examine Mr. Codrington’s map,
will see what an enormous denudation has been effected in this great
sheet of gravel, by rivers and streams, and by subäerial action. When
once the protecting gravel has been cut through, and the soft Tertiary
beds of sand and clay below have been reached, the process seems to
go on with great rapidity. A large tract of land west of Southampton
appears to have been in this way almost cleared of its gravel, of which
but patches are left. Even the principal portion of the old table-land
which has survived, that to the east and south-east of Fordingbridge,
is deeply cut into by numerous valleys, many of a depth of 200 feet.
The existence of these valleys is clearly in accordance with the river
theory.
Let us now examine the discoveries in the valleys of the Test and of
the Itchen from this point of view. Looking at the numerous instances
of the finding of flint implements in gravels containing terrestrial
and freshwater remains, and looking at the improbability of their
occurring in a purely marine deposit, I venture to regard them as being
equally characteristic of freshwater deposits as any organic fossils,
and to claim the beds in which they occur as being of freshwater origin.
At Southampton several implements have been found in the pits upon the
Common at heights ranging from 80 to 150 feet above the sea-level. The
gravel there slopes at a considerably greater inclination than that
of the table-land nearer Chilworth, with which it is continuous, and
from which it would appear to have been in part derived. It occupies
a tongue of land between the valley of the Itchen and that of the
Test, now widened out by tidal action. It is in places covered by
brick-earth, and its position and character are quite in accordance
with a fluviatile origin. If, from their proximity to the apparently
marine gravels, we assume these beds to belong to an early period in
the history of the excavation of the valley, their high position above
the present tidal stream is such as, according to the hypothesis, was
to be expected. |689|
The gravels found lower down the course of the river, at Hill Head,
Brown Down, and Lee on the Solent, appear to belong to a somewhat later
period; and to bear much the same relation to those of Southampton
Common, as do the beds at Shrub Hill to those of Brandon Down. As I
pointed out long ago, “There can be but little doubt that these gravel
beds are merely an extension of the valley-gravels of the rivers
Test, Itchen, Hamble, and other streams, which at the time they were
deposited, flowed at this spot in one united broad stream, at an
elevation of some forty feet above the existing level of their outfall,
over a country which has since, by erosive action, been in part
converted into the Southampton Water.”[2779] We shall shortly have to
revert to this circumstance; but before returning to the coast, we must
take a short glance at the features of the discoveries near Salisbury.
In the neighbourhood of this city there can be no doubt of the deposits
being thoroughly in accordance with the river theory. The Fisherton
and Milford Hill beds occupy points or spurs of land, in the forks
above the junction of streams, or precisely those spots in which their
presence was to be expected. There are the usual beds of gravel, sand,
and clay, the usual bones of the Quaternary fauna, some representing
what are now Arctic species, and therefore presumably indicative of
a severer climate than at present; and the usual land and freshwater
shells. Though the valleys, being confluent, are excavated to the
same depth, yet, on examination, their sectional areas will be found
to be approximately proportional to the extent of country drained by
the rivers still flowing through them. At Milford Hill, the deposit
is cut off from the main spur of land by a kind of transverse valley,
about thirty feet in depth, besides having on either side a valley some
100 feet deep. On any hypothesis of the beds having been deposited
by aqueous action—and no other can for a moment be entertained—these
valleys must have been mainly excavated since the deposition of the
gravels. For had the valleys at that time existed, we can conceive
of no conditions under which a body of water sufficient to fill the
valleys to their summit, and able to carry along detrital matter with
it, would leave its heavy contents at the top of the hills instead of
at the bottom. The old fluviatile beds occur also at various levels
on the slopes, in complete accordance with the theory of gradual
excavation; and farther down the valley, at |690| Fordingbridge, we
find them again occurring with remains of _Elephas primigenius_ at
about forty feet above the river.
The circumstances of the discoveries at Bournemouth seem at first sight
almost irreconcilable with any river-hypothesis; as it is difficult to
conceive how gravels capping the cliffs along the sea-shore for miles,
and at an elevation of from 130 to 90 feet above its level, can have
been deposited in such a position by the agency of a stream. And yet
on a closer examination of the case, all such difficulties vanish, and
the ancient existence of a river at such an elevation, and running
in such a direction that it would leave these gravels to testify
to its former course, seems absolutely demonstrable. Without being
aware of the results at which others had arrived, I came, after due
consideration of the facts of the case, to the conclusion that, as has
already been mentioned in an earlier page, there must in ancient times
have existed a river draining an extensive tract of country along the
southern coast, and flowing in an easterly direction; and that of this
river a portion still survives in an altered and enlarged condition as
the Solent Sea, which separates the Isle of Wight from the mainland.
Mr. Codrington, whose paper I have already so often quoted, arrived
on independent grounds at substantially the same conclusion. But at
an earlier epoch still—in 1862—before any flint implements had been
found at Bournemouth, or indeed in any of the gravels of the South of
England, the late Rev. W. Fox,[2780] of Brixton, in the Isle of Wight,
published nearly similar views as to the origin of the Solent. As his
opinions cannot by any possibility be supposed to have been influenced
by preconceived views as to the antiquity of man, I prefer stating the
case, in the first instance, in his words rather than in my own:—“The
severance of this island (the Isle of Wight) from the mainland, it
appears to me, was effected under very unusual circumstances, and at a
very distant period. The present channel of the Solent, being pretty
nearly equally deep and equally broad throughout its entire length
of twelve or fourteen miles, proves at once that it was not formed
in the usual way of island-severing channels, that is, by gradual
encroachments of the sea on the two opposite sides of a narrow neck
of land” . . . “it is to be accounted for, therefore, not by the
excavations of a gradually approaching sea, but, as I shall hereafter
have to attempt to show, by its being originally the trunk or outlet
of a very considerable river.” . . . “Whoever, as a geologist, |691|
examines the vertical strata of the Chalk at the Needles, nay, and
throughout the whole length of the Isle of Wight, and the strata of the
same rock in exactly the same unusual position on the bold white cliff
on the Dorsetshire coast some twenty miles westward of the Needles,
will not doubt but that the two promontories were once united, forming
a rocky neck of land from Dorset to the Needles. This chain of chalk
might, or might not, be so cleft in twain as to allow the rivers of
Dorset and Wilts to find a passage through them to the main ocean. My
opinion, however, is that they had no such outlet, but that at that
far distant period, the entire drainage of more than two counties,
embracing the rivers that join the sea at Poole and Christchurch,
flowed through what is now called Christchurch Bay, down the Solent,
and joined the sea at Spithead.”
“According to this theory, the Solent was at that time an estuary
somewhat like the Southampton Water, having but one opening to the
British Channel, but of so much more importance than the latter as it
was fed by a vastly greater flow of fresh water.” “Of course, according
to this view, the sea would lose its original condition as an estuary
at the time when the British Channel had so far made a breach through
the chain of rocks connecting the Isle of Wight with Dorsetshire as
to give an opening into itself for the Dorsetshire rivers, somewhere
opposite to the town of Christchurch. From that time forth the Solent
would become what it is at present, losing its character as an estuary,
and assuming that of a long narrow sea.” . . . “The distant period at
which such changes took place it would be hopeless to guess at, amid
the dimness of the data on which calculations could be founded. It
could not be less, however, than many thousands of years, seeing that
since that time, the British Channel has not only made a broad breach
of twenty miles through a chain of slowly yielding rocks, but has also
pushed its way gradually across the broad extent of the Poole and
Christchurch Bays.”
Such is the theory of Mr. Fox, which places the probable course of
events fully and fairly before our view. I see in it but little on
which to comment, except that it does not appear to have sufficiently
taken into account the widening of the Solent subsequently to the
time of its becoming a channel of the sea; and that in a passage,
which I have not quoted, Mr. Fox estimates the drainage area of the
ancient river as but little inferior to that of the Thames or Humber.
Taking the basins of all the streams discharging |692| into the sea
between Ballard Down, near Poole, on the west, and Calshot Castle and
the Medina on the east, but not including the latter river, I find
that, according to the Ordnance Map,[2781] the present land area which
would have drained into an ancient river such as that supposed, is
1,617 square miles. To this may be added another 100 square miles,
representing the area included between the present coast and an
extension of the chalk downs from Ballard Down to the Needles, the
whole of which has been washed away; though within this large area,
the present depth of the sea attains in but very few places to ten
fathoms. The drainage area of the ancient river Solent can therefore
have been but about one-third of that of the Thames and its affluents,
unless we are to suppose that, as is the case in the neighbourhood of
Carisbrooke Castle and with the Medina, a portion of land to the south
of the old chalk downs drained northward through some gap in the range
of hills. That such land existed seems probable, from the occurrence of
gravels with elephant remains along the south-west coast of the Isle of
Wight at an elevation of 80 feet and upwards above the sea, which, Mr.
Codrington has suggested, may have been deposited by tributary streams
of a river flowing northwards through the chalk range to the Solent.
But even with any such addition the area drained by the old River
Solent can hardly have been half that of the basin of the Thames.
With regard, however, to the former existence of this range of chalk
hills and the land to the north of them, Mr. Codrington has shown, in
the paper already so often quoted, that the spreading out of the marine
gravel, and the levelling of the table-lands was probably effected
in an inlet of the sea, shut in on the southern side by land which
connected the Isle of Wight with the mainland, and opening to the
eastward. Assuming, then, the existence of this ridge of high land, it
is evident, as Mr. Fox has pointed out, that the only outlet for the
rivers now represented by the Frome, the Trent or Piddle, the Stour,
Blackwater, Avon, and other streams now discharging into the sea, must
have been by an eastward channel, in fact, a continuation of the rivers
now discharging through Poole Harbour. The course of such a river would
naturally be guided, in the first instance, by the configuration of
the surface of the old marine gravels of the sloping table-land. This,
as has been shown, slopes upward from the present coast northward, and
attains its highest level inland; but traces of the same gravel occur
also in the Isle of Wight, though it there |693| slopes upward in a
southerly direction, attaining a height of 368 feet at St. George’s
Down, but being only from 100 to 160 feet above the sea in various
places along the northern shore of the island, at a distance of about
a mile inland. It appears, therefore, that there must originally have
been a valley running east and west in the old marine gravel, forming
a natural course for the drainage of the country, and probably finding
its way towards the sea, somewhere within the space now occupied by the
Solent and Spithead, though not actually discharging into the sea until
it had attained some distance eastward.
Evidence as to the highest level at which freshwater action removed
and re-deposited the marine gravel on the southern slope of the valley
is at present wanting; but, judging from a section across the Isle of
Wight from St. George’s Down to Norris Castle, given by Mr. Codrington,
the declivity is so much more rapid below the 160 feet level than above
it, that the ancient river may have commenced its action at about that
level. How far eastward the Isle of Wight may have extended at that
time it is difficult to say; but from the enormous denudation of land
to the west, and the range of the ten-fathom line, there may probably
have been land at all events as far east as opposite to Selsey, the
extensive estuarine beds at which place, containing remains of _Elephas
primigenius_,[2782] are possibly connected with this old river.
The precise manner in which the Foreland gravels and brick-earth, in
which Mr. Codrington found a palæolithic implement at 85 feet above the
sea-level, were connected with the old river-deposits, is difficult to
determine. Mr. Codrington is inclined to think that a rise of land to
the extent of 70 or 80 feet must have taken place since the deposition
of the brick-earth in which the flint implement was embedded, but
this to me seems unnecessary. It is, however, unsafe to speculate on
a single specimen found in such a position. The implements found at
Seaview and Bembridge may have been washed out of gravel-beds at a
lower level than those of the Foreland, or even have been transported
for some distance by marine currents.
Turning to Bournemouth, where so many more have been found, the highest
and most westerly point at which implements have occurred appears to be
about 130 feet above the sea.[2783] Farther |694| east, near Boscombe,
the level is about 120 feet; midway between that spot and Hengistbury
Head, the height of the gravel is 90 feet; at High Cliff, 84 feet; at
Hordwell, where implements abound, a short distance inland, 60 feet;
and about midway along the northern shore of the Solent, 50 feet.
The surface of the ground is, of course, much cut up by the numerous
streams coming in from the north; but the general fall of the gravel
from west to east is perfectly in accordance with its having been
deposited in the valley of an ancient river running in this direction,
the whole of the southern side of which has since been carried away by
the sea. Whether the old river had become tidal so far west as Hurst
Castle, when first it was intercepted by the sea to the south, does
not appear to me to be a matter of importance, inasmuch as no doubt a
valley was already formed, along the course of which the encroachments
of the sea would be more rapid than where the cliffs were higher, and
more solid matter had to be removed. That the valley, in which is now
Southampton Water, was also originally, for the most part, scooped out
by the rivers coming from the north, which in remote times flowed into
the old River Solent, is, I think, beyond all reasonable doubt. The
increased volume of the ancient river, after receiving so important
an affluent, is evinced by the widening of the channel, from Calshot
Castle eastward by Spithead, to a full third more than it is to the
west, along what is now the Solent Sea.
As to the character of the gravels at Bournemouth, it is, as already
observed, hard to distinguish those presumably of fluviatile origin
from the older and probably marine beds. In the railway-cutting between
Bournemouth and Christchurch, I thought, however, that in places I
could trace the superposition of the one upon the other. The more
recent deposits contain water-worn fragments of quartz, granite, and
porphyry, as was noticed long ago by Mr. Godwin-Austen,[2784] who, from
this circumstance, saw reason for connecting them with the gravels
capping the tabular hills of Devon and Dorset to the west.
It is, of course, evident that at the period when the river ran at this
high level, past the spot where now is Bournemouth, all the land to the
immediate west must have been far higher than it is at present, and
that Poole Harbour could not have existed. In attempting to reconstruct
the map of a country, the shores of which have been much wasted by
the sea, in order to show what |695| must have been at some remote
period the old coast-line, the task is rendered difficult and within
certain limits impossible by the absence of any evidence as to the
elevation above the sea of the land removed, and as to the channels
along which the sea could work. In this case, however, there is a
strong presumption as to the unbroken continuity of the chalk-range,
and of its elevation having been much the same throughout, as it now is
at both ends of the breach. The general character of the beds above the
Chalk, so far as their power of resistance to water-action goes, seems
also much the same at either extremity; though perhaps the beds at
the Isle of Wight end of the breach are somewhat the harder. Assuming
nearly equal conditions, and looking at the form of the present
coast-line, which is indented by two distinct broad bays, it seems
probable that the old course of the river may have been intercepted
by the sea at two several points, the one nearer Poole and the other
nearer Lymington. Directly this closer communication with the sea was
formed for the Dorsetshire rivers, they would, of course, owing to the
more rapid fall, excavate their valleys with greater speed at their
mouth, and directly they became tidal, the sea would make rapid inroads
on the soft sand and clay exposed to its action. So effective is this
action, that at Hordwell Cliff the waste of the shore is said to be
now going on at the rate of about a yard per annum,[2785] or upwards
of half a mile every thousand years, though perhaps this is somewhat
exaggerated.
In discussing this question, I have purposely avoided complicating the
subject with the effects of any general lowering of the surface of
the ground by erosion either chemical or mechanical; or of upheavals
and depressions of the land during the period of the formation of the
valleys, though no doubt this also has taken place, especially along
the southern coast of Britain. I must, however, mention the existence
of a submerged forest, occasionally visible at low water, at the
foot of the cliffs at Bournemouth, which seems to show that there as
elsewhere a depression of a former land surface has taken place. The
late Mr. Albert Way, F. S. A., who had the opportunity of examining
some of the stumps of trees exposed at rare intervals at low water,
informed me that they appeared to be those of the true Scotch fir;
and also that local tradition speaks of an impassable morass having,
so late as the commencement of the present century, |696| intervened
between the line of cliffs and the sea. On the occasion of one of my
visits to Bournemouth, some of these stumps were fortunately visible,
and were pointed out to me by Mr. Way at a spot but a few yards to the
west of the pier, and between high and low water-mark. They appear
to be of no very remote antiquity, geologically speaking, and to be
connected rather with the present valley of the Bourne than with the
valley of the old river Solent, as the trees, some of which were fully
a hundred years old, grew on the surface of a thick bed of hard peat.
Under any circumstances, however, the presence of such remains at
the foot of the cliff does not tend to diminish our estimate of the
antiquity of the freshwater beds containing the works of man, which we
find occupying their summit.
In passing the deposits containing flint implements in different parts
of this country under review, enough has, I think, now been said to
show that in position, in character, and in the nature of their organic
contents, they are perfectly in accordance with what might have been
expected from river-action under certain circumstances. The case might
indeed have been made much stronger had deposits in other places, in
all respects similar, except that the presence of flint implements has
not as yet been observed in them, been brought into account; and it
must not be forgotten that this might, with perfect propriety, have
been done, as there can be no possible doubt that a certain series
of gravels, sands, and clays, containing organic remains and flint
implements in extremely variable quantity, all belong to one geological
period, and owe their existence to similar causes.
But though on no other hypothesis than that of river-action can
the phenomena be accounted for, yet, as has already been seen, it
is necessary, in order that river-action should have produced such
effects, that the streams, during some portion of the year at all
events, should have been more torrential in character than they are
at the present day. If, however, we see satisfactory grounds for
attributing these beds containing land and freshwater shells and
remains of terrestrial animals, to rivers formerly flowing at much
higher levels than at present, which have since excavated their
valleys—and it seems impossible to do otherwise—then we must also
accept as a fact that the climatal conditions were such as would enable
the rivers to perform the work. It is, as Sir Joseph Prestwich[2786]
has shown, quite out of the question |697| to suppose that with the
valleys excavated to the present depth, any meteorological causes
could fill them to their summits; or even if they could and did, that
they would leave such deposits as we find at high elevations on their
slopes, or even on detached eminences. It will, however, be well to
examine briefly any corroborative evidence that may be forthcoming,
as to the probability either of a severer climate involving a greater
accumulation of winter snows, or of a greater rainfall, or of both. The
one, indeed, seems hardly probable without the other, as a cold land
surface “presented to vapour-laden sea-winds, as in the mountainous
districts of the north-west of Spain, in our own lake districts, and in
Scandinavia,”[2787] involves of necessity a heavy rainfall.
With regard to climate, we may take into account that which prevailed
at a somewhat earlier date; for there appears no doubt that the flint
implement-bearing gravels are all of later date than the Chalky Boulder
Clay of the Eastern Counties, a deposit which belongs to the so-called
Glacial Period, during a portion of which a great part of England and
Scotland was submerged beneath the sea, and became coated with masses
of Boulder Clay and other deposits, derived for the most part from the
moraines of glaciers, sometimes at no great distance, and possibly in
the main transported and dropped in their present positions by means of
icebergs and coast ice. That they are of later date is proved by more
than one of the implement-bearing beds reposing in valleys either in,
or cut through, this Chalky Boulder Clay; and at Hoxne the interval
between the Glacial deposits and the Palæolithic beds is marked by
two sets of lacustrine strata, the lower and earlier with a flora
characteristic of a mild climate, and the upper by one which points
to the recurrence of Arctic conditions. Prof. Boyd Dawkins[2788] has
suggested the probability of the higher ground of North Wales and the
northern part of England having been still enveloped in an ice-mantle
at the time that the mammoth, reindeer, and other post-glacial mammals
were living in the lower and less inclement districts. But this view
is to some extent founded on negative evidence, and on the assumption
that palæolithic implements do not exist in this northern area. I
have already commented[2789] on the possibility of implements being
eventually found in it.
The crumpling and contortion of some of the beds of |698|
River-drift, especially at high levels, has been regarded by Sir
Joseph Prestwich[2790] as possibly resulting from the lateral pressure
produced by packing and jamming together of blocks of ice, such as may
now be witnessed in rivers like the Danube and the Rhine. The “trail
and warp” of Mr. Trimmer, those superficial deposits so common over a
large portion of this country, which, indeed, constitute so large a
portion of the arable soil, seem also, as the Rev. Osmond Fisher[2791]
has pointed out, to be significant of a severer climate than at present
prevails. The “Palæolithic floors,” both near London and at Caddington,
are buried under a considerable thickness of this “trail.” There is
moreover a high probability that, at the time of the deposit of the
gravels, Britain was still united to the continent; so that, apart from
other causes, there was a tendency for the climate to partake more of
a continental character than at present, and to induce greater cold in
winter and greater heat in summer.
That the existence of enormous glaciers is as indicative of the action
of heat, in order to convert the water of the ocean into vapour, as of
cold to condense it, has been insisted on by Professor Tyndall,[2792]
and even more strongly by Professor Frankland. If at the time of the
rivers flowing at the high level, Britain was still connected with the
continent, it is by no means impossible that the temperature of the
seas on either side of the connecting isthmus may have been different.
That connected more immediately with the Southern Ocean would have been
the warmer of the two, from which a copious supply of vapour would be
carried by the southerly winds, and be condensed as rain in its passage
northward.
Mr. Alfred Tylor, F.G.S.,[2793] in his profusely illustrated papers
on the Amiens gravel, and on Quaternary gravels, contends for the
existence of a “Pluvial period” subsequent to the Glacial, in which
the rainfall was far greater than at present, and such a view has much
to commend it for acceptance. But when he proceeds to assert that the
surface of the Chalk in the valley of the Somme, and in all other
valleys of the same character, had assumed its present form prior to
the deposition of any of the gravel or loess now to be seen there, and
to argue that the whole of the gravels at all levels on the slopes are
of one age, and due |699| to floods extending to a height of at least
80 feet above the level of the rivers, we may well hesitate before
we give in our adhesion to such views. In the first place, it is, to
say the least of it, unphilosophical to rely too much on a single
example, such as that of the valley of the Somme; and to account for
its phenomena by causes which are evidently incapable of producing
the effects observable in other localities, as, for instance, at
Southampton, close to the sea, and 160 feet above its level. But what
shall we say to floods raising the levels of rivers upwards of 80 feet,
yet having no erosive power, and the waters of which, regardless of the
laws of gravity, tranquilly deposited their solid contents evenly over
the slopes, or often in the greatest thickness on their higher part,
and in some cases on almost isolated hills, instead of principally
on the bottom of the river-valley? Whence all the materials for the
gravels are to be derived, how they are to be reduced to a subangular
condition by water-wear, especially in the case of the flint implements
occurring in the gravels, are points on which further information will
have to be supplied, before any such views can be seriously entertained.
I have up to this point almost left out of view any distinctive
differences between the deposits at a high level and those at a low
level in the river-valleys. That such, however, exist has been pointed
out by Sir Joseph Prestwich;[2794] and judging from the northern range
of the group of shells found in the high-level beds, the absence of
southern species, the character of the mammalian and vegetable remains,
the transport of large blocks such as could only be effected by ice and
the other physical features of the case, he is inclined to assign a
winter temperature to the period of their deposit from 19° to 29° Fahr.
below that which now obtains in these regions. From a consideration of
the features of the low-level deposits he considers that at the time
of their deposit, the climate was rather less severe, by about 5°. The
presence of the mammoth and woolly-haired rhinoceros, animals specially
adapted for cold climates; of the musk-ox, the reindeer, the lemming,
and marmot, corroborates the same view; while the hippopotamus, which
seems characteristic of the low-level deposits, is suggestive of a
somewhat warmer climate. Like the mammoth and rhinoceros, its structure
may, however, have been somewhat modified, so as to enable it to occupy
colder regions than at present, or it may have been merely a summer
visitor ranging northwards before the |700| separation of Britain from
the continent. Under any circumstances its presence seems to indicate
that the volume of the rivers was probably in excess of what it is at
the present time. But whatever may have been the degree of winter cold,
or the amount of the snow and rainfall, the one was not so extreme
as to prevent there being an abundance of animal life, nor the other
so great as to interfere with the growth of a sufficient supply of
vegetable food on which it might subsist.
It has, indeed, been supposed by some that the remains of the early
mammals occurring in the gravels are derived from older beds, and that
their presence in association with flint implements no more proves
the contemporaneity of the men who made those implements with the old
Quaternary fauna, than their association with Chalk fossils proves
that mankind were originally inhabitants of the bed of the Cretaceous
ocean. Did the gravels only occur at such levels as are within reach of
existing streams, there might be some reason in such a view, which is,
moreover, in certain cases and within certain limits, probably correct.
For we have seen how in the course of the excavation of a valley, the
beds deposited at one time are liable to be disturbed at another, and
re-deposited in a fresh place; which could hardly happen without an
admixture of fresh materials, some probably of a more recent date. In
the process of transport, however, not only the implements but the
still softer bones are liable to wear and abrasion of the angles, and
it is impossible to conceive that, assuming the Quaternary fauna to
have disappeared from this region before the valleys were excavated,
and the implement-bearing beds deposited, their bones could still exist
in such numbers, and so often in an unrolled condition in the low-level
beds.
Had this older fauna disappeared, it is evident that man could not have
subsisted here alone, unaccompanied by other animals to furnish him
with food; and if these animals belonged to the later or “prehistoric”
fauna, where, as Sir John Lubbock pertinently asks, are their bones?
If, however, we acknowledge that the pleistocene mammals still occupied
this country at the time of the low-level beds being formed, and
if we find their remains also in those at a high level, and at all
intermediate heights, it is evident that they must have persisted
here during the whole period of the excavation of the valleys; while,
if we find also flint implements in an unrolled and unworn condition
at all heights, it is evident that those who made them must also
have been |701| co-occupants of the region during the same period.
If, indeed, as appears to be in some valleys the case, the unworn
implements occur only in the high-level deposits, while in the lower
they are either absent or in a much worn condition, the inference is,
that in those particular valleys the occupation by man, though for
some time contemporaneous with that of the mammoth and his congeners,
ceased before the extinction or emigration of the old fauna. In some
cases, however, as at Fisherton,[2795] the worked flints have been
found below the remains of mammoth; while in the beds at Menchecourt,
near Abbeville,[2796] in which the implements occur, were found the
bones of a hind leg of rhinoceros still in their natural position,
so that they must have retained their ligaments when deposited, and
could not since have been disturbed. With regard to the amelioration
of climatal conditions which led to the cessation of the excavation
of the valleys, it may not impossibly have been connected with the
insulation of the country, when the isthmus connecting it with the
continent was cut through by the sea. But this is hardly the place for
such speculations. If, however, we may regard the estuarine deposits at
Selsey, in which almost entire skeletons of mammoth occur, as belonging
to the period when the deposit of the low-level gravels was ceasing,
it would appear from the associated molluscan forms, as interpreted by
Mr. Godwin-Austen, that the temperature of the waters of the English
Channel was at that time such as may now be met with twelve degrees
farther south.
If there was a difference in the climatal conditions of the high and
low-level deposits, it might have produced some effect on the method
of living, and on the implements of the men of the two periods.
At one time I thought it probable that a marked distinction might
eventually be drawn between the high-and low-level implements, but
so far as Britain is concerned, this can hardly be done. Still the
_facies_ of a collection from two different spots is rarely quite the
same, and I think there is generally a preponderance of the ruder
pointed implements in the high-level gravels, and of the flat ovate
sharp-rimmed implements in the low-level. In the valley of the Somme,
the broad polygonal flakes are certainly most abundant in the lower
beds, as at Montiers, near Amiens.
I would, however, deprecate the introduction of such terms as |702|
“Eolithic” and “Mesolithic” in order to distinguish two phases in the
Stone Period as being both unfounded and misleading. We know not where
or when the dawn of human civilization arose, but it was probably
long before the date of our earliest River-Gravels and in some part
of the world more favoured by climate than Britain. Why then should
we speak of British implements as Eolithic? And how can we apply the
term Mesolithic to a period intervening between the Palæolithic and
Neolithic Ages, when we know neither when the one ended nor when the
other began?
Enough has now been said with regard to the manner in which these beds
of River-drift were probably deposited; and the irresistible conclusion
is, that, owing to the wasting agency of rain, frost, and rivers,
there must have been a vast change in the superficial features of the
country, since the time when those who fashioned the flint implements
found in the high-level gravels were joint occupants of the land with
the mammoth and rhinoceros and the other departed members of the
Quaternary fauna. A similar change in the surface of the country has
also taken place in the neighbourhood of the caves in which the remains
of this same fauna occur, associated also with similar relics of human
workmanship.
What length of time it must have taken for such changes to be effected,
is a question we must now approach; but before doing so it will be well
to say a few more words, in addition to what has already been said, on
the almost entire absence of human bones in the beds containing those
of the associated mammalia.
In the first place, it is well to repeat that whatever may be the case
in the brick-earth, or loess, there have not, as has been pointed out
by Sir John Lubbock,[2797] been found in the gravel up to the present
time any remains of animals so small as man, who, as the same author
observes, must of necessity have been few in number in comparison with
the animals by the chase of which he must have subsisted. Another
cause appears also to have been at work; for however barbarous we may
suppose the human race to have been at that remote period, we can
hardly believe them to have been so destitute of all natural affection
as to deny some rites of sepulture to friends or relatives removed by
death. There would, therefore, in all probability, be but few or no
human bones exposed on the surface in such a manner as to be carried
off by the flooded streams, and imbedded in their gravels; while, in
case of any human beings perishing by drowning, their bodies, as I have
|703| already shown, would probably either be carried to sea, or left
in such a position as to allow of their recovery, at all events before
they became disarticulated.
This is, however, a matter of but small importance, as there will be
but little difficulty in conceding that an implement fashioned by
human agency—and on this point there can be no question, unless we are
to assume in ancient times the existence of some other now extinct
race of intelligent beings—is as good an evidence of the existence of
man, as would be any or all of his bones. Moreover, human bones are
reported to have been discovered in these Quaternary beds, both in this
country and in France. In England, I have already mentioned a human
skull found near Bury St. Edmunds by Mr. Trigg, and the more doubtful
skeleton found near Northfleet. I will not, however, insist upon either
discovery being beyond all cavil.
Nor will I do more than allude to the too celebrated Moulin Quignon
jaw, over which I have already pronounced a _Requiescat in pace_,[2798]
but the discovery of portions of the human skeleton by M. Bertrand, and
M. Reboux, in the valley of the Seine, at Clichy[2799] and elsewhere
near Paris, in the same beds in which implements of true Palæolithic
types have been found, seems better substantiated.
Whether the _Pithecanthropus erectus_ of Dr. Dubois was human or
simian, and what is the date of the beds in which his remains were
found, and whether there is evidence of the existence of Miocene or
Pliocene Man[2800] in Burma, Portugal, France, Italy, or California,
are questions which want of space compels me to leave on one side. I
have, however, more than once elsewhere expressed my opinion on the
subject of Tertiary Man.[2801]
I need hardly again repeat that according to my view it is not in
Britain, but in some part of the world more favoured by climate that
the cradle of the human race is to be sought. And yet the antiquity of
Man in Britain seems to extend far beyond any of our ordinary methods
of computation. In attempting to estimate it, however vaguely, I must
at the outset observe that with our present amount of knowledge, it
is hopeless to expect that it can |704| be determined with anything
approaching to precision. Not only have we no trustworthy measure
of the rate of excavation of the valleys, which might give us an
approximate date for the higher deposits in them, but we are at a loss
to know at what epoch their excavation in the lower part of their
course ceased, and what may be termed the modern alluvial deposits,
which to some extent have partially refilled the old channels, began to
accumulate.
That the general configuration of the surface of the country, in
Neolithic times, when the ordinary forms of polished stone implements
were in use, was much the same as it is at present, is proved by the
fact of such implements being frequently found in recent superficial
deposits. Were we, in defiance of probability, to assume that the
use of these polished implements did not date farther back than two
thousand years from the period when we are first made acquainted with
this country by history, this would give an additional four thousand
years beyond the period necessary for the excavation of the valleys
for the date of the older River-drift implements. Such a period as
two thousand years is in all probability almost ridiculously small
to assign for the duration of the Neolithic and Bronze Periods; but
however this may be, there appears, in this country at all events,
to be a complete gap[2802] between the River-drift and Surface
Stone Periods, so far as any intermediate forms of implements are
concerned; and here at least the race of men who fabricated the latest
of the palæolithic implements may have, and in all probability had,
disappeared at an epoch remote from that when the country was again
occupied by those who not only chipped out but polished their flint
tools, and who were, moreover, associated with a mammalian fauna far
nearer resembling that of the present day than that of Quaternary times.
So different, indeed, are the two groups of animals that, as has
already been observed, Prof. Boyd Dawkins[2803] has shown that out
of forty-eight well-ascertained species living in the Post-glacial
or River-drift Period, only thirty-one were able to live on into the
Prehistoric or Surface Stone Period. Such a change as this in the fauna
of a country can hardly have been the work of a few years, or even of a
few centuries; and yet we must intercalate a period of time sufficient
for its accomplishment between the remotest date |705| to which we
can carry back the Neolithic Period, and the close of the Palæolithic
Period as indicated by the low-level gravels. The antiquity, then, that
must be assigned to the implements in the highest beds of River-drift
may be represented (1) by the period requisite for the excavation of
the valleys to their present depth; plus (2), the period necessary
for the dying out and immigration of a large part of the Quaternary
or Post-Glacial fauna and the coming in of the Prehistoric; plus (3),
the Polished Stone Period; plus (4), the Bronze, Iron, and Historic
Periods, which three latter in this country occupy a space of probably
not less than three thousand years.
A single equation, involving so many unknown quantities, is, as already
observed, not susceptible of solution; but various attempts have
been made to arrive at some approximate idea of the amount of time
it represents. One method has been that of assigning a date for the
Glacial Period, deduced from astronomical causes, mainly in connection
with the eccentricity of the earth’s orbit, as pointed out by M.
Adhémar and Mr. Croll. From data thus obtained, Sir Charles Lyell[2804]
inclines to place it at a period of extreme cold about 800,000 years
ago, though Sir John Lubbock[2805] would rather accept an epoch of
somewhat less severity about 200,000 years removed from our time.
Another and more direct method suggested by Sir Archibald Geikie,[2806]
following in Mr. A. Tylor’s track, is that of estimating the time
required for the excavation of the valleys by the amount of solid
matter carried down in suspension by various rivers at the present
day. He estimates that this amount, if spread over the whole area
drained by the rivers, represents, on an average, an annual loss of
about 1∕6000 of a foot; but inasmuch as the erosion of the slopes and
watercourses is very much greater than that of the more level grounds,
the excavation of the valleys must proceed at a more rapid rate, which
he assumes to be about 1∕1200 part of a foot per annum, or one foot
in 1,200 years. Such a calculation is, of course, open to various
objections, as we may readily conceive the bottom and slopes of a
valley to have been so far washed that, under ordinary circumstances,
they afford little or no fine earthy matter to be taken up by the rain
falling on their surface; and in such a case, the rivers, if turbid,
would derive their turbidity from the water delivered from the higher
and comparatively |706| unwashed table lands. Or again, the soil may,
like the Chalk under ordinary circumstances, be so absorbent that but
little of the rainfall flows off from its surface. The calculation has
already been made, that a rainfall of 54 inches annually, supposing
the whole of it flowed off the land into the sea in a turbid state,
containing, like the Mississippi, 1∕1500 part of its weight of solid
matter, would lower the surface a foot in 450 years; but as has already
been observed, we cannot conceive it possible that with such soils
as we have here to do with, the constant turbidity should have been
anything like so great. And, in fact, the whole system of calculation
is one which may be regarded rather as proving the necessity of valleys
being in course of time formed by subaërial action, than as giving any
definite guide by which to calculate the period requisite for their
formation. There can, indeed, be no doubt that the denuding power of
the falling rain is greater on the slopes than on the level surfaces;
but it seems impossible to assign any proportions to the effects on
land lying at different inclinations, of different characters, and
under different circumstances as to any vegetable covering. Were the
action uniform over the whole surface exposed, of course no alteration
beyond a general lowering of the land-surface would result from this
cause, and the valleys would remain of precisely the same depth with
regard to the adjacent land as they did at remote epochs. Looking at
the quantity of brick-earth still left on the slopes of many of our
valleys, I am inclined to think that the lowering of the surface has
been more general than has been supposed by Sir Archibald Geikie. The
presence of these soft and easily denuded beds is also an argument
against the excavation of the valleys having progressed in a uniform
manner, by heavy rains falling during the period of the year when
such beds were soft and unfrozen; and seems rather significant of the
excavation of the valley by floods principally occurring at a time when
the upper part of the soil was in a frozen condition.
Certainly the whole character of the deposits is more in accordance
with their resulting from the occasional flooding of the streams
than from any other cause. If this be so, who shall tell at what
intervals such floods occurred, and what was the average effect of
each in deepening the valleys? That they were of comparatively rare
occurrence, and not so frequent that they were foreseen by the men of
those days, seems deducible from the number of their implements found
in the gravels. For there is much probability that these must have been
washed in from |707| settlements on the banks of the rivers, which,
notwithstanding previous catastrophes of the same kind, were constantly
placed within reach of the stream when flooded.
Sir Joseph Prestwich[2807] has suggested as a possible gauge of the
antiquity of the deposits, the natural funnels eaten into the chalk
by the action of water charged with carbonic acid, and has cited one
at Drucat, near Abbeville, which has been formed since the deposit of
the gravel containing flint implements, and is upwards of 20 feet in
diameter at top, and probably 100 feet in depth; but here also it seems
impossible to introduce a factor by which the time represented can be
ascertained. There are, however, features in connection with this case
which can only be reconciled with the former high level of the bottom
of the adjacent valley, and with its gradual excavation. It will be
remembered that similar pipes of erosion, leading in some cases to
caverns above them, occur in the Drift-beds of the valley of the Little
Ouse.
There is yet another means at our command for forming, at all events,
an approximate idea of the time that has elapsed since the deposit of
the beds containing the remains of the old Quaternary fauna, inasmuch
as at the time of their introduction into this country, if not for
a lengthened period afterwards, Britain had apparently not become
an island, but was still connected by an isthmus of greater or less
width with the Continent. To estimate the time, however, that would be
required for cutting through this isthmus and widening the Channel to
its present dimensions, is a work from which the mind almost recoils.
Even the wearing away of that tract of land to the south of the
present Hampshire coast, which must almost of necessity have existed
at the time when the Bournemouth flint implement-bearing gravels were
deposited, taking the present rapid inroad of the sea on the unusually
soft cliffs at Hordwell as a guide, would seem to involve a period
of not less than 10,000 years; but inasmuch as the cliffs during a
considerable portion of the time must have been of chalk instead of
sand and clay, and as a chalk cliff 500 feet high, instead of being
worn away at the rate of a yard each year, is said only to recede at
the rate of an inch in a century,[2808] the actual period necessary
for the removal of this tract must probably have been many |708|
times 10,000 years, and can with certainty be regarded as having been
immensely in excess of such a lapse of time.
On the whole, it would seem that for the present, at least, we must
judge of the antiquity of these deposits rather from the general effect
produced upon our minds by the vastness of the changes which have
taken place, both in the external configuration of the country and its
extent seaward, since the time of their formation, than by any actual
admeasurement of years or of centuries. To realize the full meaning of
these changes, almost transcends the powers of the imagination. Who,
for instance, standing on the edge of the lofty cliff at Bournemouth,
and gazing over the wide expanse of waters between the present shore
and a line connecting the Needles on the one hand, and the Ballard Down
Foreland on the other, can fully comprehend how immensely remote was
the epoch, when what is now that vast bay was high and dry land, and a
long range of chalk downs, 600 feet above the sea, bounded the horizon
on the south? And yet this must have been the sight that met the eyes
of those primeval men who frequented the banks of that ancient river
which buried their handiworks in gravels that now cap the cliffs, and
of the course of which so strange but indubitable a memorial subsists
in what has now become the Solent Sea.
Or again, taking our stand at Ealing, or Acton, or Highbury, and
looking over a broad valley fully four miles in width, with the river
flowing through it at a depth of 100 feet below its former bed, in
which, beneath our feet, are relics of human art deposited at the same
time as the gravels; which of us can picture to himself the lapse
of time represented by the excavation of a valley on such a scale,
by a river larger, it may be, in volume than the Thames, but still
draining only the same tract of country? But when, to this long period
we mentally add that during which the old fauna, with the mammoth
and rhinoceros, and other to us strange and unaccustomed forms, was
becoming extinct, so far as Britain was concerned; and also that other,
we know not how lengthened period, when our barbarous predecessors
sometimes polished their stone implements, but were still unacquainted
with metallic tools; and then beyond this, add the many centuries when
bronze was in use for cutting purposes; and after all this, further
remember that the ancient and mighty |709| city now extending across
the valley does not, with all its historical associations, carry us
back to the times even of the bronze-using people, the mind is almost
lost in amazement at the vista displayed.
So fully must this be felt, that we are half inclined to sympathize
with those who, from sheer inability to carry their vision so far back
into the dim past, and from unconsciousness of the cogency of other and
distinct evidence as to the remoteness of the origin of the human race,
are unwilling to believe in so vast an antiquity for man as must of
necessity be conceded by those, who however feebly they may make their
thoughts known to others, have fully and fairly weighed the facts which
modern discoveries have unrolled before their eyes.
FINIS.
|710|
DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES.
PLATE I.
1. Simple ridged flake. _Porte Marcadé, Abbeville._
2. Sharp-pointed flake, with several facets on its convex side.
_Montiers, near Amiens._
3. Chisel-pointed flake. _Ibid._
4. Large polygonal flake. _Ibid._
5. Round-pointed, tongue-shaped, sub-triangular implement. _Biddenham,
near Bedford._
6. Acutely pointed, kite-shaped ditto. _St. Acheul, near Amiens._
7. Sub-triangular ditto, with truncated butt. _Ibid._
8. Ditto, with incurved sides, and butt formed of the natural surface
of the flint. _Ibid._
9. Ditto, made from a round-ended nodule of flint. _Ibid._
10. Thick-backed, single-edged implement of wedge-shaped section.
_Ibid._
PLATE II.
11. Ovate tongue-shaped implement. _St. Acheul, near Amiens._
12. Ovate-lanceolate ditto, with rough butt. _Ibid._
13. Ditto, with truncated butt. (_Brick-earth_), _St. Acheul, Amiens_.
14. Rough, wedge-shaped implement. _St. Acheul, Amiens._
15. Round-pointed implement with untrimmed butt. _Ibid._
16. Ditto, with naturally rounded butt and side. _Ibid._
17. Thin, ovate, tongue-shaped implement. _Champ de Mars, Abbeville._
18. Ovate implement of intermediate form between the tongue-shaped and
sharp-rimmed. _St. Acheul, Amiens._
19. Ovate, thin, sharp-rimmed implement. _Menchecourt, Abbeville._
20. Irregularly ovate ditto. _Moulin Quignon, Abbeville._
[Illustration: _Plate I._ IMPLEMENTS FROM THE RIVER-DRIFT.
_Scale six inches to the foot or half linear measure._]
[Illustration: _Plate II._ IMPLEMENTS FROM THE RIVER-DRIFT.
_Scale six inches to the foot or half linear measure._]
|711|
GENERAL INDEX.
A
Abbeville, hand-mill at, 258
Abbott, Mr. J. W. Lewis, on minute flint tools, 325
Aberdeenshire, flint workshops in, 22
Abnormal peculiarities in celts, 130
Abrasion of flints by fire-producing, 315, 318, 416, &c.;
by hammering, 217, 413, &c.
Abydos, Egyptian arrow-heads from, 393, 395
Achilles, spear of, 4
Adams, Dr. Leith, Guernsey arrow-head factory traced by, 401
Adder-stones, 437
Adhémar, M., as to date of Glacial Period, 705
Admixture of objects of different periods, 210, 475, 479, 487, 492
Adzes,
in Burma and Assam, 59;
of Clalam Indians, 165;
of New Guinea, 162;
Polynesian, of basalt, 69;
bronze, 4;
with carved handle, 166, 167;
celts adapted for use as, 94, 122, 124, 135;
of chalcedonic flint, 138;
hafting of, 164, 165;
for hollowing canoes, 165, 166;
of horn, carved, 435;
of mussel-shell, 182;
perforated, 188–192;
uses of,215
Ælfric’s Glossary on _Stan-æx_, 145
Æneid, mention of bronze arms in, 4
Africa, sacrificial use of stone in, 10;
flint flakes in diamond diggings of, 277
Agate,
arrow-heads of, 406;
chisel of, 40;
gun-flints of, 21
Agatharchides on Egyptian chisels, 6
Ages, Stone, Bronze, and Iron, succession of, 2
Agricola, Georgius, on _Brontia_ and _Ceraunia_, 64
Agriculture, possible use of stone implements in, 71, 205, 645
Ahts of North America,
fern-roots eaten by, 250;
mussel-shell adzes used by, 182
_Aithadh_, or elf-shot, 365
Akerman, Mr., on Lapp burials of needed objects, 283
Alaska, stone hammer from, 25
Albania, gun-flint making in, 21
Albite, chloritic, celts of, 109
Aldrovandus,
his _culter lapideus_, 289;
on the _Glossopetra_, 363;
on Roman stone weapons, 362;
his _securis lapidea_, 157;
on stone implements, 63, 64
Aleppo, threshing instrument from, 284
Aleutian Islanders, thong-drill used by, 48
Alexius Comnenus, celt presented by, to German Emperor, 59
Alger, Mr., on level of Waveney Valley, 683
Algeria, flakes from, 287
Algonquins, form of club used by, 424
_Allée couverte_ of Argenteuil,
perforated pebbles from, 465;
stag’s horn socket from, 160;
worked blade from, 327
Alluvium, beds of, between stalagmitic layers in caverns, 479
Almond-shaped implements, 647
Alteration in structure of flint, 487, 497, 513, 556, 596, 659, 660
Alum, its wood-preserving power, 152
“Amazon axe,” 184
Amber,
beads of, in interment, 429;
cup of, at Hove, 449;
with perforated axe, 185;
with whetstone, 268;
importation of, to Britain, 449;
piece of, in interment, 149;
plates of, for necklaces, 460;
studs or buttons of, 456
America, doubtful evidence of palæolithic remains in, 654
Ammonites
in barrow, 467;
their use as “cramp-stones,” 470
Amulets,
arrow-heads mounted as, 365, 367;
celt probably used as, 145;
of iron-ore in interment, 313;
Portuguese decorated, 470;
of schist, 463;
stones in interment as, 466, 468, 469
_Anchorites_, Dr. Grew’s description of, 364
“Ancient Meols,” Hume’s, referred to, 439
Anderson, Dr. J.,
experiments with flint implements, 320, 408;
on polished stone discs, 440
Andrée, Richard, on beliefs concerning stone weapons, 60
Angelucci, Capt., stone arrow-head factory discovered by, 402
Anglesea, querns in, 259
Anglo-Saxon burial ground, flint and steel in, 283
Animals,
carvings of, on weapons, 215, 435;
engravings of, on Egyptian gold haft, 359;
extinct, their co-existence with man, 513, 524, &c.
Antiquity
of celts, 143, 150;
of man in Britain, 704;
of river-drift implements, 700
Antlers of deer,
celt-sockets made from, 160;
circle of, in barrow, 466;
used as picks at Cissbury, 79;
flat instrument of, 432;
at Grime’s Graves, 33
Anvils, stone,
early use of, 245;
recent use of, 11, 232
Apaches of Mexico,
arrow-head making among, 24;
hammer-hafting, 239
Arabs, arrow-head charms among, 367
Archer, Mr. F., neolithic flakes fitted on to core by, 20
Arctic fauna,
of Crayford beds, 607;
northward retreat of, 486;
of Salisbury beds, 689;
plants, fossil, at Hoxne, 577
Ariantes, his method of numbering the people, 368
Armlet on arm of skeleton, 429;
bronze, in cromlech, 464;
“coal-money” the central disc of, 465;
of jet, lathe-turned, 464
Arrow-flakers, 37, 416
Arrow-flaking,
art of, in America, 42;
experiments on, by author, 41;
use of fossil ivory for, 37
Arrows and arrow-heads,
African and Asiatic, 405;
American, 406, 407;
Arab, 367;
of the Bushmen, 370;
Californian, 39, 40;
Danish, 35, 306;
Egyptian, 368, 369, 395;
Eskimo, 25, 37;
French, 395, 400–402;
Gelderland, 403;
German, 403;
Greek, 368;
Indian, 405;
Irish, 365, 370, 399, 400;
Italian, 359, 402;
Japanese, 405;
from Lake-dwellings, 402;
Lycian, 410;
Mexican, 39;
Patagonian, 400;
Persian, 394, 396;
Peruvian, 407;
Russian, 404;
Scottish, 386;
Scandinavian, 353, 404;
Spanish, 403;
Swiss, 409;
Virginian, 37;
barbed, 380–390;
bone, 210, 361;
bronze, scarce in England, 368;
chisel-ended, 409;
crescent-shaped, 396;
detachable from shaft, 370;
double-pointed, 386;
featherless, 410;
iron-tipped, 394, 396;
leaf-shaped, 373–378, 484;
lozenge-shaped, 378, 484;
manufactories of, 268, 280, 359, 401, 402;
methods of shafting, 408, 410;
modern use of, for fire-producing, 397;
in necklaces, 10, 300;
notched, 372, 396, 406;
poisoned, 361, 370;
single-barbed, 385, 393, 306;
stemmed, 370;
successive developments of, 369;
superstitions concerning, 362–367;
triangular, 390;
in human vertebræ, 375, 396, 400
Arrow-shafts,
concave scrapers for fashioning, 320;
grooved pebbles for straightening, 268;
Irish, 408;
South American, 407
Art, works of, in caves, 484, 523, 657
Arundelian marbles as to date of discovery of iron, 4
“Asbestos,” ligniformed, whetstone of, 352
Ash,
Irish arrow-shaft of, 408;
in brick earth at Hoxne, 537
Ashes of bone in hyæna den, 518
Asia, beliefs in, concerning celts, 59
Asphalte, use of, in mounting Swiss celts, 163
Assagais, Kaffir mode of shafting, 410
Assiut, figures from tomb at, 369
_Astropelekia_, 59
Atkins, Mr. E. Martin, abraded pyrites found by, 318
Atkinson, Rev. J. C, barrows examined by, 211
Attrition of teeth by gritty food, 253
Atys, stone knife used by, 9
Augustus, bronze arms as antiquities in time of, 4
Australians,
celts handled by, with gum, 137, 170, 171;
flint an article of barter among, 80;
flints mounted by, as saws, 277, 293;
grinding nardoo-seeds, 243;
hatchet-hafting among, 233;
pounding-stones of, 243, 245;
tomahawks, mode of mounting by, 166;
tools of, 97
Authenticity of palæolithic implements, 658, 659
Awls,
bone, from Kent’s Cavern, 506;
bone instruments used as, 432;
bronze, in interments, 84, 186;
bronze, with wooden shaft, 462;
flint, 321–325;
perforated, 323;
use of, in sewing leather, 433
Axes, 32, 63, 149;
hafting of, 155–163, 168, 160;
used in the hand, 151;
of Montezuma II., 157;
hieroglyph of Nouter, 62
Axes,
perforated, Brazilian, 157;
in Brittany, 212;
Danish, 32, 186, 205;
French, 186;
German, 145, 186, 191;
Greek, 205;
Kjökken-mödding, 69;
Lake-dwellings, 158;
Mexican, 191;
Scandinavian, 187, 215;
of basalt, 186;
boring of, 46–52;
with carved handles, 167;
classification of, 184;
contemporaneous with bronze, 193, &c.;
cutting at one end, 192, &c.;
double-edged, 184–192;
fluted, 203, 211;
grooved, 168, 169;
hafting of, 151–171;
hollowed on sides, 209;
in interments, 83, 163, &c.;
large and heavy, 198, 199;
little used by modern savages, 215;
lozenge-shaped, 213;
ornamented, 196, 209, 211;
pointed at one end, 188;
single-edged, 184, 192–196;
superstitions concerning, 62, 63, 65, 145, 146;
of ulna of whale, 435
Axe-hammers, 168, 200–205
Aymara Indians, hatchet-hafting among, 169, 239
Ayre, Col., R.A., 78
Aztecs,
their method of stone working, 23;
their stone mortars, 257
B
Babington, Prof. C. C., on flint hammer from Burwell, 538
_Bætuli_, virtues of, 65
Bahia, stone club from, 251
Baines, Mr., on Australian stone-working, 26
Balanus, presence of, in Stour Valley, 621
Ball of Towie, 421
Balls, stone,
carved, 422;
in lead mines, 234;
perforated Peruvian, 232;
possibly used in games, 244;
their use among Eskimos, 219;
in grinding corn, 253;
as hammers, 249;
with channelled surface, 420–423
Ballast for railways, implements found in, 573, 578, 632, 633, 639
Barbers, Mexican, their obsidian razors, 290
Barbs of arrows, various forms of, 380, &c.
Bark, Australian hammers hafted with, 167, 168
Barlow, Mr. F. Pratt, pointed drift implement found by, 619
Barnwell, Rev. E. L., on Welsh hammer-head, 226
Barrows,
bronze and flint found together in, 397, &c.;
chambered, bone chisel in, 433;
cups of shale in, 445;
fossils in, 466, 467, 469;
gold cup in, with bronze dagger, 449;
jet ornaments in, 265, 454, &c.;
long, leaf-shaped arrow-heads in, 377;
necklaces in, 456–463;
pebbles in, 443;
pyrites and flint in, 265, 467;
spindle whorl of clay in, 439;
stag’s horn hammer in, 434
Barry, Mr. F. Tress, 227
Barter,
flint an Australian article of, 80;
flints at Cissbury probably formed for, 80;
finely worked daggers procured by, 414
Bartlett’s “History of Manceter” referred to, 187
Basalt,
axe hammer of, in interment, 467;
heads of, 186, 194, 197, 202, 208, 211, 214;
celts of, 106, 114, 140;
hammers of, 25, 223;
hatchets, 34, 85, 170;
late use of, for anvils, 232;
maul of, 234
Basaltic rock, African flakes of, 288
Bastard gouges, 180–182
Bast-fibre, its use in arrow shafting, 409;
used in weaving, 436
Bate, Mr. Spence, 266, 279
Bateman, Mr., on pebbles in interments, 467
“Bâtons de commandement,” in La Madeleine caves, 484
Bats, stone, possibly used for preparing hemp, 257
“Batting-staff,” 256
Battle axes, 195, 197, 207;
with amber cup in coffin, 449
“Battling-stones,” 257
Baudot, M., on flakes in interments, 283
Bauerman, Mr., on stone hammers in Egyptian mine, 581
Baye, Baron Joseph de, 160
Beads,
amber, 457, 459, 460;
animal fibre used for stringing, 459;
like arrow-heads, 367;
bone, 432, 456, 457;
with spiral pattern, 211;
glass, 437, 456;
jet, 83, 394, 457–462;
Kimmeridge clay, 309, 457;
of peculiar shapes, 463;
quartz, 465;
shale, 463;
various, 457–463
Bear,
chipped tooth of, 503;
bones of, in position at Brixham, 513
Beauty, materials chosen on account of, 224, 227, 406, 466
Beckmann quoted as to date of flint-locks, 17
Bed-stone and rolling pin, 250
Bees-wax and mastic, axes mounted with, 170
|713|
Beetles, elytra of, in brick-earth, 536
Beger, “_celtes_” first named by, 55
Belcher, Sir Edward,
on Eskimo arrow-flaking, 37, 39;
“flensing-knife,” 292;
stone working, 25;
stone planes, 299
Bell, Mr. A. M., discoveries of implements by, 593, 610
_Bellilah_, Australian mode of pounding, 245
Belt, the late Mr. Thomas, on Hoxne deposits, 576
ⲂⲈⲚⲒⲠⲈ, interpretation of, 5
Bennett, Mr. F. G., implements found by, 536, 627
Bernays, Mr. E. A., palæolithic implement found by, 611
Bicarbonate of lime, proportion of, in chalk-streams, 675
“Bill,” meaning of, 146
_Bipennis_, 146
Birds, remains of, in Fisherton beds, 631
Bison, caves of the age of the, 481
Bitumen,
use of, in Swiss Lake-dwellings, 170, 292, 409;
Egyptian arrows secured to shaft by, 369
“Black balls,” present use of, in ballots, 468
“Black-boy gum,” flints mounted in, 277
Blackmore, Dr. Humphrey P., drift implements found by, 627, 628, 635
Blacksmiths, modern, their mode of hafting chisels, 168, 233
Blades of flint,
crescent-shaped, 355;
Egyptian, 354;
from Kent’s Cavern, 496
Blanford, Mr. W. T., Indian drift implements found by, 651
Blunting of battle-axes, 196, 207
Boars’ teeth in interments, 83, 148, 328, 427
Bodkin of wood in urn, 433
Bodmann, flint manufactory at, 22
Bohemian stone axes, 51
_Bolas_, present mode of using, 422
“Bolthead, the flat,” 364
Bonardo on flint arrow-heads, 364
Bone,
arrow-heads of, 21, 361, 402;
awl, 523;
beads, 211, 432, 456;
blade of, flint flakes inserted in, 277, 294;
chisels, 177;
harpoons of, 277, 394;
instruments in interments, 313, 314, 431, &c.;
needles, 321, 433, 523;
objects of, in caves, 484, 488, 492, 523, &c.;
late Roman, 144;
pins, 34, 40, 83, 186, 431, 432;
plate of, perforated, 428;
rounded piece of, 34;
single-barbed arrow-head of, 409;
tools of, Eskimo, 410;
tube, 268;
used in arrow-chipping, 39, &c.;
wedge for working obsidian, 24
Bones,
crushing of, probably for marrow, 25, 239, 504, 657;
gnawed, 486, 508;
human, with those of extinct animals, 481, &c.;
mineral condition of, in caves, 508
Borers or awls, 321–325
Boring of stone,
methods of, 47, 48, 52;
incomplete, of stone implements, 205, 206, 226
_Bos primigenius_,
celt imbedded in skull of, 91, 92;
_longifrons_ not found in Britain before neolithic times, 486
Botocudo Indians,
their method of hafting, 156;
their use of stone blades, 171
Boulder, cup formed from, 450
Boulder Clay,
anterior to implementiferous deposits, 577, 685, 697;
East Anglian, 683
Boulders, American use of, 235;
used as hammers, 233, 234
Bourgeois, Abbé, on human works in Pliocene times, 658
“Bournes,” causes of intermittence of, 664
Bow, use of, not general among savages, 360
Bows and arrows,
Egyptian carved figures armed with, 369;
myth concerning, 361
Bowen, Mr., as to African “thunderbolts,” 60
Box, stone, containing red pigment, 264
Bracelets (see Armlets)
Bracers, 425–435, 456
Bracken, use of, as food, 250
Brandon, manufacture of gun-flints at, 14, 17
Brazilian stone axe, 157
Breach through the chalk range near Bournemouth, 695
Breccia,
formation of, in caves, 479;
implements from, in Kent’s Cavern, 495;
mace-head made of, 232
Brent, Mr. John, implements found by, at Reculver, 613–620
Briar-wood shaft, arrow-head found with, 408
Brick-earth,
implements from, 530, 536, 542, 548;
old land surface underlying, 598
Bright spots on drift implements, 565, 659
_Briquets_
with flints in graves, 283, 397;
bruising of flints by the use of, 315
Brittany,
superstitions regarding celts in, 57;
early incised drawings of celts in, 62
Brixham Cave,
discovery of, 490;
fauna of, 513;
implements of, 513–516;
section of, 512
Broch of Lingrow, 416, 440
Brochs,
cups in, 414, 440;
querns in, 259;
stone and bronze in, 440;
whetstones in, 269
Bronze Period
in Egypt, 6;
in Greece and Italy, 4, 5;
probable duration of, 704
Bronze,
armlets of, 459;
arms, mention of by Homer, 4;
arrow-heads, 368;
awls, 84;
bucket, 451;
celts, 213, 268, 453;
celts mounted in stag’s horn, 428;
chisels, 6;
dagger with ox-horn hilt, 265;
daggers, 185, 193, 194, 208, 227, 398, 427, &c.;
ear-rings, 207;
Egyptian hatchets, 169;
finger-ring, 398;
“hammer-stone,” 246;
implement found at Ploucour, 340;
knife in interment, 195;
knife, socketed, in Kent’s Cavern, 492;
mining instruments, 6, 233;
moulds for celts, 269;
needle, central-eyed, 433;
palstaves, 163;
pins, 267, 269;
tube, 49;
tweezers, 433;
use of, in Britain, 147;
use of, contemporaneous with that of stone, 84, 143, 211, 331, &c.
Brooch
of metal in interment, 214;
possible use of ring as, 466
Brooke, Mr. J. W., his implements from Fordingbridge, 633
Brown, Mr. J. Allen,
on minute flint tools, 325;
researches at Ealing, &c., 591;
Mr. James, drift implements found by, 622, 625, &c.
Browne, Sir Thomas, on slickstones, 441
Brun, M. V., his explorations at Bruniquel, 296
Brunswick, first use of flint-locks by soldiers of, 17
Buckland, the late Mr. Frank, 291
Buckman, Prof. J., manufactory of celts recorded by, 35
Buschan, Dr. G., on prehistoric spinning, 437
Buick, Dr., on Irish arrow-heads, 365, 370
“Bulb of percussion,” 274
Bunyard, Mr. G., drift implements found by, 618
Burma and Assam, stone adzes in, 59
Burnishers of stone, 103, 139, 442
Burton, Dr. J. Hill, on elf-bolts, 366
Bushmen,
arrows shafted by, with ostrich-bones, 410;
ostrich-egg-shell fragments perforated by, 277;
poisoned arrows of, 370
Bustards, flint arrow-heads abraded by gizzards of, 396
Butt end of celt,
definition of, 66;
roughened for insertion into socket, 128
Buttons,
early use of, 452;
of jet in interments, 453, 455, &c.;
possible use of perforated discs as, 439
C
Cæsar, Julius, Gaulish use of iron in time of, 10
“Caillouteur,” daily production of gun-flints by, 21
Cairns, stones thrown on, 282
Calc-spar, sling-stones of, 418
Calcareous nodule,
celt formed from, 115;
incrustations on palæolithic implements, 659, 660
Caledonians, their early use of iron, 11
Calendering effected by slick-stones, 441
_Calendrine_, in Cotgrave’s Dictionary, 441
Californians,
arrow-head making among the, 423;
grooved stones of the, 268;
knife, 273
Calmucks, use of military flail among the, 423
Calvert, Mr. F., implements found by, near the Dardanelles, 652
Cambodia, superstitions as to celts in, 60
Camenz, bronze tube found at, 49
Cane, possible use of, in stone-drilling, 50
Canoes,
adze for hollowing, 165, 166;
celts found with, 129, 150;
gouges for hollowing, 178;
hollowed by horn chisels, 434
Cantabria, imperial omen in, 65
Carbonic acid, its solvent power on chalk, 477, 675, &c.
Caribbean character of certain implements, 129, 130, 168, 169
Caribs,
axe-hafting among, 155, 218;
their shell gouges, 182
Carreg-y-Saelhau, or stone of the arrows, 262
Cartailhac, M., his sections of San Isidro valley, 529
Carved representation of celt in dolmen, 153
Carvings in caves, 484, 523
Cassava bread, stone slabs for cooking, 440
Catlin, Mr., on American flaking-tools, 24
Cattle,
elf-arrows the cause of disease among, 365, 366;
protection of, by witch-stone, 470;
snake-bitten, how to treat, 437
Cave-bear, age of the, 481
Cave-deposits, rarity of large implements in, 641
Cave-dwellers, their mode of living, 657
“Cave-earth,” 479, 492
Cave-implements, 473, &c.
Cave-remains prior to Neolithic times, 482
Caves,
alternate tenancy of, by man and beasts, 479;
chronological sequence of contents of, 475, 481–485;
deposits of, compared with river gravels, 474;
early use of for habitations, 126;
formation of, 477, 480;
ossiferous, 474, 476;
sepulchral, 126;
stalagmite of, 479
Belgian, 286, 475, 478
Brixham, 512–516
Creswell Crags, 522–524
French, arrow-heads in, 396;
bone and horn objects in, 177, 321;
character of implements of, 53;
flint flakes in, 292;
hammer-stones, 248;
quartzite flakes, 281, 292;
serrated flakes, 296
Gibraltar, bone objects in, 177, 433;
long flake in, 287;
saddle-quern in, 252;
sandstone plate in, 428;
stone chisel-gouge in, 182
Happaway, 517
Kent’s Cavern, 488–511
Long Hole, Gower, and other Welsh Caves, 521
of Palestine, early sepulture in, 9
Tor Bryan, 516
Wookey hyæna-den, 517–520
Cavities in gravel, how formed, 556, 557, 561
_Celte_, occurrence of, in Vulgate, 55
Celts,
suggested etymology of, 55;
superstitions concerning, 56–65;
classification of, 66
chipped or rough hewn, 67–86;
chisel-edged, with curvature of face, 67, 68, 73;
with equal faces, 75;
long and narrow, 81;
tanged, 83;
wedge-shaped, 82;
small, made from fragments of larger, 87, 97;
of stones other than flint, 84
ground at the edge, 90–97
polished, with abnormal peculiarities, 130;
accompanying interments, _passim_;
approximate date of, 147;
broken, conversion of, into other implements, 242, 248, 339;
bronze, from barrows, 213, 268, 309;
chisel-like, 103, 120, 121;
classification of, 98;
with cutting-edge blunted, 138;
with flattened sides, 110–119;
found in canoe, 150;
grooved or notched, 136;
mode of hafting, 151;
oblique-edged, 113, 124;
oval in section, 122, 129;
perforated, 142;
range of, in time, 147, 150;
recent use of, by Irish weavers, 440;
rectangular in section, 119–122;
sharpened at both ends, 118;
stag’s-horn sockets for, 163;
for use in hand, 133, 136, 171;
various uses of, 171, 172
Cembro pine, Siberian stones for crushing nuts of, 245
Cements
used in hafting implements, 170, 171;
bituminous, in Swiss hafting, 292, 409
Cemetery, Frankish, of Samson, 397
_Cerauniæ_,
old German authors concerning, 63;
Sotacus on the, 64, 480;
Pliny concerning, 65
Cereals, absence of, among cave-dwellers, 657
Ceremonial stone-adze, 167
Chafing-dish of stone, 445
Chalcedonic flint,
celts of, 92, 138;
Egyptian blades of, 359;
serrated arrow-head of, 385
Chalcedony,
American lance-head of, 337;
Chilian arrow-heads of, 406;
gun-flints of, 21;
harpoon-points of, in Greenland, 405;
implements of, their French provenance, 80;
Mexican dagger-blade of, 354;
ornamental hammer of, 226;
small Indian cores of, 23
Chaldæans, their reverence for the hatchet, 62
Chalk,
absorbent nature of, 663;
carved cylinders of, 421;
cups of, 34;
cup-shaped vessels of, 450;
districts, implementiferous gravels in, 663;
mining in, for flints, 33, 79, 172;
solution of, by carbonic-acid-charged water, 477, 557, 675;
“subterranean reservoir” in, 664
Chamacocos, socketed axes among the, 157
Champignolles, pit for extraction of flint at, 35
Changes, geological,
in cave regions, 521, 525;
affecting the River Drift, 662, &c.;
coast-line affected by, 695
Chantre, M., 133;
on hafting of celts by savages, 164, 244;
drift implement found by, in Euphrates valley, 653
Charms, arrow-heads used as, 364–366;
hereditary custody of, 469;
perforated pebbles as, 231
Charruas, the, lenticular sling-stones used by, 418
Charters-White, Mr., on the attrition of teeth by grit, 253
Chert,
balls of, 249;
British celt of, 65;
cores of, in Welsh caves, 521;
Eskimo use of, for arrow-heads, 25;
implements of, in Welsh caves, 581;
Irish tool of, 175
Chester, the late Rev. Greville J., barrow examined by, 463
Chieftainship, decorative weapons a mark of, 226
Children, quartz pebbles in interments of, 467
Chinese, use of military flail among the, 423
Chipping flints, relation of, to grinding, 85, 86, 290
Chisels,
blacksmiths’ present mode of hafting, 168, 233;
bone, 177, 433;
bronze, in Egyptian gold-mines, 6;
of deer’s horn, 434;
distribution of, 177;
Maori hafting of, 178;
and picks, 173–177
Chlorite,
whetstone of, 269;
slate, plates of, in interment, 398
Chloritic albite,
celts of, 109;
stone, hatchet and haft made of one piece of, 171
Chronology
of Neolithic Period, difficulty of ascertaining, 471;
of the River Drift attempted, 705, &c.;
of stone implements, purely retrogressive, 473
_Cidares_, fossil, in interments, 469
Cilix, myth of, 313
Circles, concentric, on stones, 463
Circular habitation, stone cup in, 450
Circumcision, use of stone knives in, 9
Cissbury,
flint manufactory at, 33;
objects found at, 32, 81;
Neolithic fauna at, 80;
General Pitt Rivers’ explorations at, 78–82
Cists in barrows, objects found in, 248, 330, 453–456, &c.
Civilization
of maritime tribes in time of Cæsar, 10;
degree of, among the cave-dwellers, 657
_Clach-nathrach_, 437
Clalam Indians, 105, 166
Clan Chattons, stone charm in the possession of the, 469
Claudian,
_religiosa silex_ of, 10;
flint and steel mentioned by, 16;
on the _ceraunia_ of Pyrenean caves, 481
Clavigero
on the rate of obsidian working, 24;
on metal Mexican axes, 155
Clay,
burnt, loom weights of, 443
ironstone, celt of, 120
pipe, implement found in, 602
slate, celts of, 65, 106, 114, 136
valley-forming in, 677
vessels, instruments possibly used in shaping, 266, 432, 434
Climate, zoological evidences as to change of, 584, 699
Clinch, Mr. G., 248;
ovate implement found by, 604
Clod-crusher of stone, 239
Cloth, Irish, celt used for giving gloss to, 440
Cloud River Indians, use of bone punch by, 25
Clouston, Mr., drift implements found by, 597
Club, so-called, of hone slate, 118
“Coal money,” 447, 448;
traces of lathe on, 465
“Coast finds,” so-called sling-stones in, 419
Coast line, variations in, 617, 695
Cochet, Abbé, on flints in Merovingian interments, 314
Cocks, metallic, pole lathe still used for making, 447, _note_
Codrington, Mr. T.,
on Southampton drift, 626;
on Hampshire deposits, 687, 688;
on origin of Solent, 690, 692;
his section across Isle of Wight, 693
Coffin
of oak in barrow, 185;
at Hove, contents of, 449
_Coin de foudre_, 57
Collections
of Aymard, M., of Le Puy, 114, 202, 402;
Banks, late Rev. S., 103, &c.;
Beloe, Mr. E. M., 142;
Borgia, 62;
Bourgeois, Abbé, 322;
Braybrooke, the late Lord, 144, 173;
Brent, the late Mr. J., 102, 613, 618, &c.;
Brooke, Mr., of Marlborough, 18, 107, 227, &c.;
Chaplain Duparc, 43;
Christy, _passim_;
Cursiter, Mr., of Kirkwall, 124, 171, 190, 221, 224, 252;
Clément, Dr., 161;
Courvale, M. de, 161;
Duke, the late Rev. E., 267;
Durden (in Brit. Mus.), 69, 93, 125, 126, 174, 176, 230;
Evans, _passim_;
Finlay, late Dr., of Athens, 114, 205;
Flower, the late J. W., 74, 93, 107, 125, 175, 247–255, 291, 295, 309;
Foresi, 367;
Greenwell, _passim_;
Jewitt, the late Mr. Llewellynn, 198, 202, 352;
Klemm, 49, 157, 163, 165, 252, 294;
Litchfield, Mr., 326;
Lucas, the late Mr. J. F., 96, 107, 136, 343, 352, 463;
Meyrick, 195, 351, 423, 575, &c.;
Monkman, the late Mr. C., 92, 121, 122, 188, 191, 319, 333, 334, 342;
Mortimer, Messrs., of Driffield, _passim_;
Neuberg, Baron de, 51;
Perthes, Boucher de, 226, 327;
Poley, the late Rev. W. Weller, 341;
Ransom, Mr. W., 196;
Reboux, M., 187;
Rivers, General Pitt, 88, 140, 144, 155, 231, 247, 277, 278, 279, 309,
332, 334;
Sturge, Dr. Allen, see Greenwell;
Warren, the late Mr. Joseph, of Ixworth, 88, 110, 113, 192, 229, 539
Comb-like instruments in Kent’s Cavern, 489, 492
Commerce in amber, 449
Commodus, the Emperor, his skill in archery, 396
Cone of percussion, 273, 274
Congarees, stone implements of the, 241
Continent, British connection with, in Drift Period, 698
Contracted position in interments, 149
Conyers, Mr., “British weapon” found by, 581, 582
Cooking vessels of steatite, 451
Copeland, Colonel A. J., 173;
pointed drift implement obtained by, 613
Copiapo, human vertebra, with arrow-head embedded, found near, 406
Copper, bracelet of, 405;
needle, 440;
smelted, in Kent’s Cavern, 492
Copper mines,
American, stone hammers in, 235;
of Maghara, 6;
objects found in old workings of, 233;
Spanish, &c., mauls found in, 234
_Corbicula fluminalis_,
former presence of, 578, 584, 586;
found above worked flints, 606;
found below drift implements, 621
Cores or nuclei, 20, 23, 276;
boat-shaped, 27;
and flakes, their mutual relation, 31, 272;
possibly resulting from tube-boring, 47;
flint, used as hammers, 248;
occasionally used as sling-stones, 419;
palæolithic, from Kent’s Cavern, 503;
flakes refitted to, 20, 598, 606;
long, their absence from River Drift, 648
_Corisco_, Portuguese name for stone axe, 59
Corn-crushers
from Swiss Lake-dwellings and others, 246, 250;
-grinding, Irish, 251, 258;
-mills, stone spindles for, 242
_Coscinopora globularis_, possible use of, as beads, 657
Cotton, Mr., his gift of flint arrow-heads to Dr. Plot, 362
“Cramp-stones,” ammonites used as, 470
Crannog,
possible hatchet-haft found in, 155;
ridged hammer stones in, 247;
scraper from, 310;
polished stone discs in, 440
Craveri, Signor, on Mexican arrow-making, 39
Crawshay, Mr. de B., palæolithic implements found by, 605, 608
Crayford beds, Arctic fauna of, 607
Crescent-like implements, 559, 571
Crinkling of flint dagger-handles, 359
Croll, Mr., as to date of Arctic Period, 705
Cross-bow, use of by Romans, 411
Cross-chipping,
practice of, in Scandinavia, 28;
shewn by Greek obsidian cores, 28
Crystal,
balls of, in Merovingian graves, 470;
arrow-heads of, 406;
quartz, modern use of as pick, 235;
used as drill, 322
_Culter lapideus_, 289
Cuming, Mr. Syer,
as to so-called club, 118;
on slickstone, 442
_Cuneus fulminis_, 63
Cunnington, Mr. W.,
barrows examined by, 83, 460;
celt belonging to, 91
Cup-shaped
marks on stones, 245;
vessels of chalk, 450, 451
Cups
in interments, of hollow flints, 83;
ornamented, 148;
earthenware, 149;
rude, 266;
with pyrites, 313;
with jet objects, 352;
containing arrow-heads, 399, 432;
with gold ornaments, 427;
with amber beads, 429;
handled, 444, 449;
turned in lathe, 446–449;
wooden, 448;
of amber, 449;
of gold, 449
“Curing-stones,” 469
Currier’s tool, perforated stone used as, 442
Carved edge
to implements, 576, 624;
knives, 355–358;
recess in palæolithic flake, 555
Cushing, Mr., arrow-head made by, 39
Custom House rates, “slick-stones” in table of, 441
Cutting powers of flint, 289
Cutting tools of slaty stone, 344;
for holding in hand, 247;
modern use of, 348
D
Dacotahs, pump-drill used by, 48
D’Acy, M. E., on implements of the French caves, 511
Daggers,
bronze, in interments, 185, 193, 194, 208, 211, 212, 214, 268,
269, 331, 398, 448;
with gold on handle, 227;
fluted, 331
flint, in interments, 208, 313, 353, &c.;
for holding in hand, 348;
leaf-shaped, 352;
leaf-shaped, unknown in Ireland, 353;
notched, 353;
square-handled, 353;
Egyptian and Danish, with crinkled handles, 359;
handles of, used for re-chipping, 414
bone, 431
Dagger-knives,
bronze, in interments, 265, 309, 313;
flint, 208, 313;
highly worked Danish, 413, 414
Damour, M. A., on materials of celts, 66
Dana on the malleability of meteoric iron, 5
Danish flint daggers,
ornamentation of, 42;
perforated celts, 114;
celts of great size, 118;
tumuli, iron found in, 144;
handled scrapers, 308;
graves, needles in, 433
Darbishire, Mr. R. D., finds of celts, 84, 152, 236
Darwin, Mr. W. E., 624
Daubrée and Roulin, M.M., on Mexican razors, 290
David, possible nature of his sling, 417
Dawkins, Prof. Boyd,
on flints upon Roman sites, 283;
on the fauna of British caves, 485;
on human skull in Cheddar cave, 486;
on condition of bones from cave-earth, 508;
on Brixham cave, 512;
on Welsh caves, 521;
on Crayford beds, 607;
ovate implement found by, 611;
on possible glaciation of N. Britain in Mammoth period, 697;
on the extinction of some Post-Glacial animals, 704
Dawson, Mr. W. C., on a supposed hafted celt, 153
_Débâcle_, results of, on the Rhine, 672
De Bonstetten, 287, 470
Decorations, personal, 452–472
Deer, representations of on stag’s horn adze, 434, 435
Deer’s horn, see Stag’s horn.
Deluge, stone implements taken as evidence of, 526
Dendritic-markings
on implements, 558;
as testimony to authenticity of implements, 659;
to what cause due, 660
Denmark,
approximate dates of Periods in, 2, 23;
bracers in, 430;
cores of boat-shaped form from, 27;
square-sided hatchets from, 32;
grinding stones, 43;
mode of testing thunderbolts in, 57;
general use of flint for celts in, 85;
comparative rarity of arrow-heads in, 404
Denudation,
opening of caves by, 478;
of the Fen country, 680, 681;
of Hampshire gravels, 688
Deposits,
implementiferous, due to river action, 696;
marine, in Fen gravels, 681, 686;
ossiferous, in caves, 478;
in valleys, varying with the elevation, 699, 701
Depressions for holding, worked in cutting tool, 344
Desor, Professor,
on method of boring stone, 51;
referred to, 159, 161, 310
Detritus, amount of, brought down by rivers, 667, 705
Deventer, modern use of stone axe at, 157
Devonian limestone, caverns in, 491, 512
Dickinson, the late Mrs.,
on collective burial of celts, 75;
her collection referred to, 93, 465
Diodorus Siculus
on the use of stone in embalming, 8;
on the implements of the Ichthyophagi, 288
Diorite,
axe-hammer of, 205;
axe-head of, 213;
bastard-gouge of, 182;
polished celt of, 107;
ring of, 465
Discs,
imperforate, 440
perforate, of dolerite, 230;
as fly-wheels of drilling-sticks, 231;
of jet, 455;
ovoid, in Kent’s Cavern, 493;
possible uses of, 244, 439;
quoit-like, 440;
sharp-rimmed, 216
Discoidal implements possibly used as missiles, 648
Discoloration of flints, evidence afforded by, 659, 660, 661
Dish with lid, 451
Dishes,
stone, 440;
with handles, 451
Distaff and spindle, recent use of, 436, 437
Divining, grooved stone used in, 470
Dog,
bones of in cist, 426;
first appearance of, in Neolithic times, 486
Dolmens of Brittany,
arrow-heads in, 385, 400;
axe-hammer in, 212;
carved illustration of celt in, 153;
jadeite celts in, 109;
chisel-ended implement from, 395;
long whetstone from, 268;
pyrites and flint in, 318
of other parts of France, lance-heads from, 352, 354;
polished chisel from, 176;
stag’s horn sockets from, 160;
worked flakes, 327;
Danish, stone bracer in, 430;
Spanish, arrow-heads in, 430
Dolomieu,
on French gun-flint making, 18;
his estimate of work of _Caillouteur_, 21
Dolomitic conglomerate, cave in, 517
Domestic use, instruments for, 436, 599
_Donderbeitels_ and _Donnerstein_, 58, 63
Dordogne caves,
objects from, 262, 292, 296, 312, 329;
nature of, 476;
deposits in, 478, 480
Doughty, Mr. Charles M., his finds at Hoxne, 376
Douglas, Mr., suggestion as to celt in interment, 145
Downes, Mr. W., chert implement found by, 639
Drainage area of ancient Solent River, 691, 692
Drift-stages of the Darent Valley, 690
Drill,
antiquity of use of, 48;
hollow, probable use of in America, 50
Drilling
by flint-flakes, 321;
by quartz crystals, 322
“Drinking cups.” See Cups.
“Druidical circle,” 149;
objects found in, 197
_Druten-stein_, as charm against witches, 469
Dubois, Dr., his _Pithecanthropus_, 703
Dugdale, Sir William, on stone celts, 3
“Dug-out” canoes hollowed by stag’s horn chisels, 434
Dunn, Mr. E. J., African drift-implement found by, 653
Dupont, Dr. E.,
on a worn nodule of pyrites, 318;
his investigation of Belgian caves, 481;
his classification of cave deposits, 482
D’Urban, the late Mr. W. S. M., on the ballast pit at Broom, 639
E
Ear-rings, bronze, in interment, 207
Earthenware,
cup of, in interment, 149;
spindle whorls of, 439
East Anglia, relations of palæolithic deposits in, 577
_Eben_, double meaning of, 443
_Echini_, fossil, in interments, 468, 469
Edkins, Mr. Joseph, on stone hatchets in China, 114
Eggs of wild goose, portions of in Fisherton beds, 631
Egypt,
boring by tubes in, 51;
drill and bow used in, 48;
early use of sling in, 417;
evidence as to date of iron in, 6;
flakes from, replaced on each other, 20;
meteoric origin of iron used in, 5
Egyptian arrows,
chisel-shaped, 368, 395, 409;
blades, leaf-shaped, 8, 354;
flint flakes, 287;
knives, leaf-shaped, 8;
knives of polished stone, 6, 348;
knives, ripple-marked, 359;
mode of mounting adzes and hatchets, 167, 169;
notched hammer, 169;
sickle, mounting of flakes in, 297, 358;
soldiers, carved wooden, 360;
wrist-guards, 430
Elagabalus, the Syrian god, 10
Elephant-bed at Brighton, 622
Elf-arrows, 302–366;
-bolts, 387;
probable interment of as charms, 397;
-darts, mounted as amulets, 365;
-shot, arrow-heads as protection against, 365
Elissa, bronze sickle of, 5
Embalming, use of stone implement in, 8
Emery-powder, alleged use of in drilling _meres_, 52
Encampments, ancient, presence of flakes in, 280, 281
Engelhardt, M. C., his method of preserving wood, 152
Engelhardt, M., on the formation of ground-ice, 671
Engravings on bone by cave-dwellers, 484, 523, 657
Enniskillen, late Earl of, on Irish gun-flints, 397
“Eolithic,” use of term deprecated, 702
Erosion of valleys, 665–671;
chronological data from, 707
Eskimos,
their arrow-flakers, 25, 37, 412, 414;
ball-weapon, 219;
bone harpoons, 394, 505;
bone tool for straightening arrow-shafts, 410;
flail stone, 219;
“flensing knife,” 292;
hammer of jade or nephrite, 25;
iron knife of, 293;
meteoric iron used by, 5;
mode of hafting knives, 347;
pyrites, their use of for producing fire, 15, 317;
steatite cooking vessel, 451;
stone scrapers, 39, 208, 299, 344;
stone scrapers used as planes, 299;
weighted throw-strings, 422;
whetstones for bone implements, 268;
wrist-guard, 430
Etruscan necklaces,
arrow-heads as charms in, 65, 366;
tombs, gold wreaths for, 84
Euphotide or Gabbro, hatchet chipped of, 36
Europe, early use of the bow in, 360
Evans, Mr. Arthur John,
implement found by, 72;
Dr. Philip Norman, drift implements found by, 518, 617, 635, 636
Evolution of arrow-heads, 369
Experiments
on arrow-flaking by pressure, 39;
on arrow-shaft forming, 320, 408;
on fashioning a hatchet, 36;
on drilling bone, 321, 322;
on drilling stone, 48, 50;
on sawing stone, 45;
on tree-cutting, 69, 162;
on the wearing of flint flakes, 504;
on woodcutting, 297
External flakes defined, 641
F
Fabricators and flaking-tools, 412–416;
dagger-hilts used as, 413, 414
Faces of celts, definition of, 66
Fairy darts, effect of on cattle, 365, 366;
mill-stones, 437
Falconer, the late Dr. Hugh,
on the “bulb of percussion,” 274;
his work at Brixham cave, 512;
on tooth found at Wookey, 520;
on worked flints at Abbeville, 527
Fauna,
climatal changes shown by, 486, 584, 631, 689;
mammalian, altered by man, 482;
Brixham, 513;
of the caves, 479, 483–486;
Creswell, 524;
French, 510;
Happaway, 517;
Kent’s Cavern, 507, 508;
Long Hole, Gower, 520;
Palæolithic and Neolithic compared, 485;
Tor Bryan, 517;
Welsh, 521;
Wookey hyæna den, 519;
of the River drift near Aylesford, 611;
Bury St. Edmunds, 542, 543;
changes of, between Drift and Surface Periods, 704;
Fisherton beds, 631;
French, 528;
Hitchin brick-earth, 537;
Lark valley, 543, 550;
Little Ouse valley, 551, 556, 561, 569;
northern character of in high level gravels, 699;
Ouse gravels, 533–538;
Spanish, 529;
Thames valley, 586, 591;
molluscan, at Bury St. Edmunds, 540;
of Cam, 539;
characteristic of brackish water, in Stour valley, 621;
of Fisherton beds, 631;
of Hitchin brick-earth, 536;
at Hoxne, 575;
of Little Ouse valley, 551;
marine, in Fen gravels, 681;
of Milford Hill, 632;
of Ouse gravel, 531–3;
at Stutton, 578;
in Thames valley, 584, 585
Feathering of arrow-shafts, 410
Felsite,
hammer-head of, 230;
ovate implement of, 591
Felstone,
implements of, 66, 96, 116, 119, 124, 135, 521, 566;
spherulitic, celt of, 124
Fenni, use of bone arrow-heads among the, 361
Fens, denudation of the, 680, 681
Fergusson, Mr. James,
on the three Periods of antiquities, 3;
on changes in the Ganges delta, 667
Fern roots used as food by the Ahts, 250
Fibrolite,
traces of sawing on French hatchets of, 43;
Spanish celt of, 44;
hatchet, 144;
stone resembling, celt of, 188
_Fibula_, pins and skewers made from the, 431
Fibula, Roman, found with celt in Saxon grave, 144
“Finger flints,” 416;
-ring, spiral, of bronze, 398
Fire-arms, flints used for, 17
“Fire-drill,” widespread use of, 48
Fire,
early use of flints for procuring, 15;
early modes of producing, 312, 313;
use of pyrites in producing, 15, 315;
traces of, on bones in caves, 510
Fish, scales of, in river drift, 540, 541
Fisher, Rev. Osmond, 538;
on successive Palæolithic Periods, 568
Fishing, mode of twisting lines for, 437
Fishing-hooks of combined flint and bone, 294
Fishing Indians, use of sink-stones by, 236
Flail, military, its nature, 423
“Flail-stones,” 218, 230;
possibly whetstones, 269
Flakes,
bevel-edged, 546, 559;
as borers, 321;
broad, 701;
circular, 341;
in caves, 492, &c.;
classification of Neolithic, 275;
of Palæolithic, 641;
effects of different uses on, 289;
external, 275, 641;
as fish-hooks, 294;
flat, 276, 642;
hafted, 228, 229, 292, 293, 327;
in interments, 279, &c.;
leaf-shaped, 326, &c.;
long, 28, 35, 641, 642;
manufacture, &c., of, 22, 35, 83, 606;
manufacture of for gun-flints, 19, 20;
minute, 325;
modes of fracture of, 272;
notched by use, 642;
on Palæolithic floor, 586, 598, 606;
polygonal, 276, 642, 643;
rarely ground at edge, 290;
relation of cores to, 20, 31, 272;
replacement of, on cores, by Mr. Archer, 20;
by Mr. W. Smith, 20, 586, 598, 599;
by Mr. Spurrell, 20, 606;
ridged, 275, 641;
in River Gravels, 536, 546, 555, 586, &c.;
on Roman sites, 283;
row of, mounted as knives, &c., 293;
row of, as armature of sickles, 297;
sawing by means of, 45;
as scrapers, 298, 312;
serrated, 294–297;
side scrapers, 548, 643;
square-ended, 597;
of Surface Period compared with Palæolithic, 642;
Swiss, mounted, 292;
tools employed for making, 24, 25;
triangular, 340, 343;
trimmed, 326, &c., 642;
wide range of, 283, 288
Flaking tools, 24, 412;
probable uses of, 413;
dagger-hilts used as, 414
Flax,
possible use of stone bats in preparing, 257;
early use of, for weaving, 436
“Flensing-knife,”
Eskimo, 292;
Shetland blades resembling, 347
“Flint Chips” referred to, 234
Flint Jack, arrow-heads made by, 42, 659
Flint-knapping, 17–22
Flint,
alteration in structure of, 494, 489, 497, 498;
ancient workshops of, 22, 606;
as article of barter, 35, 80;
brittle condition of, 558;
cutting powers of, 281, 282;
difficulty of perforating, 223, 224;
durability of, 655;
experiments in shaping, 30, 41;
flakes and cores of, 20, 31, 272, 279;
grinding of, 43;
hardened by exposure, 18, 32, 33;
importation of, 281;
minute tools of, 325;
modern ceremonial use of, 9;
necessity of, in savage life, 282;
ochreous, 536, 553, 597, 602;
pits for extraction of, 33, 35, 78, 79;
prismatic splitting of, 88;
processes for grinding, 43;
result of abundance of, in chalk districts, 677;
scarcity of in Northern Britain, 580;
softening of in red brick-earth, 596;
and steel, early use of, 16, 271, 282;
and steel, meaning of, in interments, 283;
tools for working, 41;
use of, with pyrites, 16, 313, 319;
whitening of, 494, 498, 499, 545, 549, 596, 611, 619;
whitening, cause of, 497;
worn by use, 311, 312, 414, 416
Flints,
accidentally fractured, M. Hardy on, 658;
heaps of, on Palæolithic floor, 598
Flood deposits,
varying nature of, 668, 669;
their removal by subsequent floods, 670
Floods,
their action in valley-erosion, 666, 706;
as caused by ground-ice, 671
“Floor-stone,” gun flints made from, 33
Flora,
temperate, below brick-earth, 537;
recent, in Oxford peat, 593;
of various climates at Hoxne, 577, 697
Flower, the late Mr. J. W.,
on East Anglian flint implements, 551, 556;
on section at Bromehill, 681;
on French and English palæolithic implements, 650;
on Drift-beds of the Fens, 681;
on the Drift-beds of Brandon, 683
Fluting
on arrow-heads, 392;
on axe-hammer, 203;
on Danish dagger-hilts, 42, 393;
on Egyptian blades, 359;
probably effected by pressure, 42, 393
Fluviatile origin of implementiferous beds, 688
Folklore Society referred to as to fairy darts, 365
“Food-vessels” in interments, 224, 462
Fooks, Mr. C. C. S., implement found by, 606
Forbes, the late Mr. David,
Bolivian implements described by, 169, 232, 239
Forel, Dr. F. A., his experiment in stone-working, 36
“Forest Bed,” Norfolk, supposed worked flints from, 572
Forest, submerged, at Bournemouth, 695
Forgeries
of arrow-heads, 42;
of Palæolithic implements, 658, 659
“Fort,” cup found in, 444
Fossils,
ascription of, to diabolical agency, 363;
use of, as ornaments, 470, 657;
in interments, 466, 469
Foster, Dr. C. Le Neve, drift implement found by, 610
Fox, Rev. W., as to origin of Solent Sea, 690
Fracture of flint, natural and artificial compared, 273
Fragments of implements, use of, 223, 242, 339
Frankish Cemeteries, objects found in, 283, 307
Frankland, Prof., on climatal conditions of glacier formation, 698
Franks, Sir A. Wollaston,
on an abraded pyrites nodule, 318;
on hafting of American flint blades, 349;
on perforated discs, 439;
on present use of stone vessels, 450
French, Mr. J., drift implements found by, 578
Frere, Mr. John, his discoveries at Hoxne, 573, 576
Friction, polish of stone saw by, 295
Frost, disintegrating effect of, 672
Fuegians,
their arrow chipping, 39, 406;
their use of arrow-heads as knives, 334;
their mode of fire-producing, 15, 317;
their mode of using scrapers, 299
Fungus, its use as tinder, 16, 317
_Fustibalus_, Roman use of the, 418
Future existence, belief in, implied by objects in interments, 84, 283
G
Gabbro, tools for flint-working made of, 22
Gaillard, M. F., Breton finds of pyrites and flint by, 318
Gallas, form of scraper among the, 299
Games, possible use of stone balls in, 244, 245
Ganges, estimate of detritus carried by, 667
Gastaldi, Prof.,
on arrow-head superstitions, 367;
engravings by, 120, 200, 333, 337
Gatty, Rev. Reginald A., on minute flint tools, 325
Gaudry, M., sections of San Isidro valley by, 529
Gaul, Celtic, importation of amber from, 449
Gaulish coins, stone hatchet found with, 144
Gautier de Bibelesworth quoted as to slickstones, 441
Gaviller, Mr. G. H., oval implement found by, 584
Gay, the late Mr., 178
Geikie, Sir Archibald,
on lowering of river-basins, 668;
on chronology of valley erosion, 705, 706
Gems on hilt of Mexican chalcedony blade, 355
Geological data as to antiquity of man in Britain, 704, &c.
George, Mr. T., his find at Elton, 573
Georgius Agricola on thunderbolts, 64
Germany, superstitions in, regarding celts, 57, 58
Gesenius, his mention of stone knives in Palestine, 9
Gibb, Dr. G. D., drift implement found by, 617
Gibraltar, objects found in caves of, 177, 182, 252, 287, 428, 433
Gimawong, sacrificial use of stone in honour of, 10
Glacial deposit,
celt found in gravel of, 136;
deposit in Little Ouse valley, 682;
Period, flint-bearing deposits subsequent to, 697;
Period, attempt to date astronomically, 705;
Periods, their relation to Palæolithic periods, 568
Glaciers, heat action indicated by, 698
Gladstone, Dr. J. H., broad flake found by, 606
_Glandes_, the Roman sling-stones, 418
Glass
beads in barrows, 437, 456;
modern ceremonial use of flakes of, 9;
“slickstones” of, 441, 442
Glossiness
of surface of palæolithic implements, 659;
to what cause due, 660
_Glossopetra_, Pliny’s account of the, 363
Glovemakers, recent use of stone nodules by, 416
Godwin-Austen, Mr. R. A. C.,
his exploration of Kent’s Cavern, 489;
on gravels of Wey valley, 594;
on origin of Bournemouth gravels, 694;
on former temperature of English Channel, 701
Gneiss, hammers of, 221, 223, 224
Gnostic inscriptions, Egyptian celt bearing, 60, 61
Goat’s horn, use of, by Mexicans in arrow making, 39
Gog and Magog, their military flail, 423
Gold,
armilla of, 460;
box-like objects of, 460;
circular ornaments of, 427;
cup of, in barrow, 449;
engraved haft of, with Egyptian blade, 359;
on handle of bronze dagger, 227;
perforated studs covered with, 456;
plates of, in barrow, 227, 428
Gold mines of Egypt, bronze chisels in, 6
Gooch, Mr. W. D., on African palæolithic implements, 653
Goose, wild, remains of in Fisherton drift beds, 631
Gordon, Robert, of Straloch, on elf-darts, 364
Gouges,
abundance of, in Scandinavia, 178;
bronze mould for, 269;
Irish, 181;
rare in Britain, 178
Granite,
ball of, in Kent’s Cavern, 503;
blocks of, used as anvils, 245;
celt of, 108;
hammer stone of, in Kent’s Cavern, 503;
hand-mills of, in recent use, 253;
ironing stones of, 443;
perforated axes of, 195, 198;
polished hammer of, 222;
saddle-quern of, 252;
wedge-shaped blades of, 97;
water-worn fragments of, in Bournemouth gravels, 694
Grass, asserted hafting of implement with, 645
Grass-tree, Australian use of gum from the, 170
_Grattoirs_, 298
_Grattoir-bec_, 305
Gravel, pipes of in chalk, 551;
bones of animals smaller than man not found in, 656
Gravel Hill, Brandon, 562–567
Gravels,
French, 526–8, 698;
Spanish, &c., 529;
English, 530 _et seq._;
deposited, transported, and re-laid, 670, 693, 700;
nature of, governed by local causes, 678;
see “Sections”;
relations of to Boulder Clay, 577, 685, 697
Graves, Rev. J., on recent use of a quern, 258
Greece and Italy,
precedence of bronze to iron in, 6;
obsidian cores from, 28;
stone implements as thunderbolts in, 59
Greek language,
priority of bronze and iron shown by, 5;
inscription on celt, 61, 62
Greeks,
their reverence for the hatchet, 62;
use of sling bullets among the, 418
Greenhill, Mr. J. E., on the London gravels, 586
Greenland,
fish-hook in grave in, 294;
harpoon points of chalcedony in, 405
Greenough map, the, referred to, 683
Greenstone celt, sawing of, with flint flake, 45
Greenwell, Canon,
his explorations at Grime’s Graves, 33, 40;
of barrows, _passim_
Gregory, Mr. A. G., on stone-working in Australia, 26
Grew, Dr. Nehemiah, on “the flat Bolthead,” 364
Grewingk, Herr, on stone-boring tools, 47
Griffiths, Rev. Dr., ovate implements found by, 601
Grime’s Graves, explorations by Canon Greenwell at, 33, 40