596 Mammalian Remains at Maidstone. 



marshy places, no decided fresh^water shell having yet been 

 detected in them. Some of the beds afford evidence of having 

 been tranquilly deposited ; others (as those on the east side of 

 the river) of water charged with loam and gravel ; whilst the 

 remains in the gravel-pit at Bostle may have been washed 

 out of a prior deposition, and again entombed as the drainage 

 of the district became lower. But it is difficult to ascertain 

 the relative age of these deposits ; and " we should doubtless 

 err in assigning all these mutations to one and the same 

 period. The phenomena are extremely complicated, and an 

 appearance which may seem to have been produced at the 

 same time, and by a single operation, may have been the 

 result of many and varied changes." (Mantell's Geol. S. E. 

 of England, p. 350.) I lo eJ&fiO) ati 



It is, however, an interesting circumstance connected with 

 these deposits, that the remains of elephants have also been 

 observed in the other transverse valleys of the North and South 

 Downs ; as in the Stour, at Chatham, near Canterbury ; in 

 that of the Mole (mentioned iri IX. 46.), and also at some 

 height above the Arun. " These remains, consisting of a 

 tusk, bones, and several grinders of the elephant, were found 

 in a bed of gravelly loam, situated near the foot of the 

 Downs, and reposing on the chalk, at an elevation of about 

 80 ft. above the level of the Arun. " (Mantell's Geol. S. E. 

 of England, p. 42.) 



As connected with the above communication, it may be as 

 well to notice that, during the historical era, the Med way has 

 gradually changed its level. Ancient documents respecting 

 the town of Maidstone attest that it was much wider and 

 deeper than at present, which statement is borne out by some 

 recent excavations on the east side. The first, at Mr. Fisher's 

 brewery, where the following section was exposed, about 100 

 yards from the river, and 1 6 ft. above its present level : — Debris 

 of Medway, rolled fragments of ragstone, drift mud, silt, &c, 

 12 ft. The other, at Springfield paper-mills, a quarter of a 

 mile below, in excavating for a new reservoir, about ten yards 

 from the river, and about 4 ft. above its level, consisting of a 

 loamy sand, with pebbles and numerous shells, reposing on a 

 bed of gravel. The shells are Helix radiata, hortensis, hispida, 

 rufescens, pulchella, crystallina, pura, trochilus ; Cyclostoma 

 elegans ; Bulinus lubricus ; 'jTupa marginata, pygmae v a ; Cary- 

 chium minimum ; Balae^a fragilis ; Succinea oblonga ; Limax 

 agrestis, Sowerbyz. The shells have mostly lost their colour : 

 those of the ZJmaces are very numerous, and frequently 

 rounded like grains of pisolite. It is a singular coincidence, 





