Manchester Memoirs, Vol. xlvi. (1901), No. %. 



II. On the "Implements from the Chalk Plateau," 

 in Kent, their Character and Importance. 



By R. D. Darbishire, F.S.A. 



Received and read October ijth, igoi. 



I have ventured to intrude upon your attention 

 chiefly on account of the special human interest 

 of a subject to which I have myself devoted very 

 sympathetic consideration, and which I desire to help 

 to vindicate against a good deal of what seems to be 

 mostly half knowledge and prejudice. 



I myself cannot profess to be scientifically familiar 

 with the geological position of the ground I am going to 

 take you upon, nor indeed can I claim any distinctive 

 position, beyond that of a student and a collector for very 

 many years past, as to the objects to which I shall call 

 your attention. 



The country is what is called the Weald of Kent, and 

 the chalk Plateau through which it has been cut, and, 

 above all, certain deposits overlying this Plateau. 



At some period of remote antiquity, of which we 

 have no possible measure, the chalk was formed at the 

 bottom of the ocean, and afterwards a considerable 

 mass of tertiary deposits of various kinds was cast down 

 over it. Next, the whole of this portion of the earth's 

 surface appears to have been raised — some geologists say 

 6,000 feet — , at any rate, far above the sea-level, with the 

 tertiary beds at the top. 



It is difficult to define the successive alterations of the 

 surface of the earth which have left it such as we now see. 



December gih, igoi. 



