66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and also give the results of my own examination of the Hoxne dis- 

 trict. 



Mr. John Frere, so long ago as the first year of the present cen- 

 tury, communicated to the Society of Antiquaries an "Account of 

 Flint Weapons discovered at Hoxne, in Suffolk." 1 He stated that 

 they were found in great numbers in a bed of gravel, which was over- 

 laid by one foot of sand with shells, and containing the jawbone and 

 teeth of an enormous animal ; the sand being again covered by seven 

 and a half feet of brick-clay. Mr. Frere noticed that the strata lay 

 horizontally, and had been denuded to form the present valley, and 

 therefore concluded that they belonged to a period when the configu- 

 ration of the surface was different from what it is now, and he consid- 

 ered that their antiquity was possibly "even beyond that of the pres- 

 ent world." The manner in which the flint implements lay, and their 

 great abundance, led Mr. Frere to conclude that a manufactory of 

 them had been carried on at the place where he found them. 



The discovery does not appear to have excited any attention at 

 the time, and for more than half a century remained unnoticed. In 

 1859, when the discovery of flint implements in the valley of the 

 Somme, in France, in association with the remains of the mammoth 

 and other extinct mammals, had at last aroused the attention of geolo- 

 gists, Mr. Frere's memoir was brought by Mr. John Evans before the 

 notice of Mr. Prestwich, who had just returned from Amiens. He 

 soon after visited Hoxne, and carefully examined into the facts of the 

 case. He found that the bed of brick-clay was still being worked, 

 and that flint implements were occasionally, though rarely, turned up ; 

 and on a subsequent visit with Mr. Evans they succeeded in disinter- 

 ring one themselves. 



The valleys of the Waveney and its tributaries are bounded by 

 low hills of gravel and bowlder-clay. The bed-rock is not seen in any 

 of the sections exposed, but it is supposed to be chalk. Tlie gravels 

 and sands (the middle glacial sands and gravels of Mr. Searles Wood, 

 Jr.) are exposed in many gravel-pits on both sides of the Waveney. 

 They are sometimes capped by the upper bowlder-clay ; at others, by 

 a more sandy bed with stones (the " trail " of Mr. Fisher), which in 

 some of the sections graduates into the upper bowlder-clny, of which 

 I believe it to be the modified representative. One of the deepest 

 sections on the north bank of the Waveney is near the road from Hiss 

 to Harleston, at Billingford, where the series of beds shown in Fig. 1 

 are exposed. 



Mr. Fisher some time ago called attention to the great importance 

 of the upper bed, or "trail," in the study of the glacial beds, 2 but it 

 has not yet received the notice it deserves. It is the most persistent 

 of all the beds in the southeastern counties, and can be traced, in al- 



1 " Arclioeologia,'' 1800, vol. xiii., p. 206. 



8 Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, vol. xxii., p. 553. 



