EVIDENCES OF PREHISTORIC MAN IN WEST KENT. 329 



.as a reliable test of age, as,, owing to purely local circumstances, it 

 is quite possible that the discolouration may belong to a much 

 later period. 



We will now proceed to an examination of the area which for 

 some eighteen months I have carefully -examined and noted, 

 namely, that of Well Hill, Shoreham, as it illustrates to a very 

 accentuated degree the great antiquity of the high leVel gravels 

 belonging to the S. to N. rivers of the Weald. The elevation 

 known as Well Hill rises to a iieight of 6io feet O.D. and forms 

 the culminating point of the immediate vicinity. {See Section, 

 Fig. I.) The most striking feature of the elevation is that on 

 the summit (6io feet O.D.) there is a thick and well-marked 







'^Jo '^iro o^ 



^ « % • « • M«> 





^AJL igrfr- 



FIG. I SECTION OF WELL HILL, SHOWING THE RELATIVE POSITION OF 



EOLITHIC AND PALEOLITHIC GRAVELS. 



deposit of flint gravel packed in a matrix of loose quartz sand. 

 That the gravel is one of great antiquity, older, perhaps, than 

 the drift on the Downs, is suggested by its much wasted con- 

 dition, making it useless as road metal, and the absence of debris 

 from the Lower Greensand ; this latter point, first noticed by the 

 late Sir Joseph Prestwich, is of some importance, as showing that 

 at the time of the deposition of the Well Hill gravel the rivers 

 had not cut their channels through the chalk. The simple com- 

 position of the gravel well confirms the antiquity assigned to it ; 

 the flints are only slightly iron-stained, and instead of the clay 

 matrix of the Downs, there exists the sharp, crisp sand, showing 

 clear evidence of the break-up of the Tertiaries once existing to 



