z(> 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



these few figures it will be seen what an enormous 

 amount of material is removed from a given locality 

 to others in ten or twenty years, simply in the form 

 of ballast. 



\Ve will now return to Jersey. We find that in the 

 year lS6o, 165 vessels with a gross tonnage of over 

 3000 tons were employed in oyster catching ; the 

 destination of these oysters was, no doubt, England, 

 and it is most probable that these boats took temporary 

 ballast, even as many colliers do now, by helping 

 themselves to the shingle of our south coast shores. 

 But although the oyster beds of Jersey are of so little 

 value now, it was even before 1S60 that very large 

 quantities were obtained for the English markets ; 

 add to this fact the number of small boats that other- 

 wise traded with the island, and we shall see that, 

 great as is the quantity of flints that are met with, 

 their existence may most probably be thus accounted 

 for, considering, too, that they are most abundant 



Fig. 32. — Spear-head (N.S.) 



where currents tend to deposit any such "jetsam." 

 We have also obtained rolled fragments of Devonian 

 fossils from the shore of Grouville Bay, which are ob- 

 viously traceable to a similar cause. 



It will thus be seen that in all questions of this 

 kind there are many things that may be worth con- 

 sidering before arriving at any fixed conclusion, for, 

 taking the phenomenon to which we have before re- 

 ferred, namely, the encroachment of blown sand in 

 the district of St. Ouen's Bay, we might at some future 

 period obtain this complicated problem — hills of 

 blown syenitic sand, at tlic base of which is a band of 

 clialk flints, the whole overlying a weathered surface 

 of clayslate. 



We will now consider the various evidences of the 

 existence of prehistoric man as shewn by the very 

 remarkable series of implements, ranging from the 

 crudest type of palaeolithic flint weapons to the more 

 developed and finished ones of bronze and polished 

 greenstone that have been discovered in Jersey. 



Perhaps the most interesting facts in connection 

 with a consideration of such objects of remote human 

 work is, that it undoubtedly refers to a time when 

 Jersey, with the other Channel Islands, formed 

 not only a part of the continent, but was even 

 included with England in that connection ; for we 

 shall see that the flint from which the implements iir 

 one small cave were formed is decidedly not of one 



Fig- 33- — Small Spear-head (N.S.) 



I'^'g- 34- — Spear-head (N.S. 



kind, but was in all probability derived from several 

 different cretaceous localities. 



The existence of large mammalia, as proved by the 

 discovery of a bone oi Bos privngcnius at St. Clements, 

 also supports this theory, were such support necessary. 



On all the high headlands round the coast of the 

 island, wherever the virgin soil has been turned uj^ 

 to any extent, or where peat has, for some purpose 

 or other, been removed, flint chips are to be found, 



