36 



year to the higher levels, leaving patches of gravels as they re- 

 ceded, assorted and re-assorted by rivers and iloods, -n^hen heavy 

 rains, probably exceeding even those of the tropics at the pre- 

 sent time, cnt river channels to lower levels, leaving what were 

 once the bottoms of gravel strewn valleys, the tops of gravel 

 capi^ed hills, in some places, as at Maidstone, tlii-ee hundred 

 feet above the present river level. On the retiu-n of a warm 

 climate the animals seem to have again immigrated into this 

 country, the herbivorous being followed by the carnivorous, for 

 we find in some of the "bone caves," as at Kirkdale, there- 

 mains of the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, ox, deer, 

 sheep, goat, &c., with the bear, lion, panther, wolf and bones 

 frequently' gnawed by hyenas. 



Latterly the makers of flint implements appeared upon this 

 stage of the world's history, and with knives and scrapers of 

 flint resorted to the river sides to prepare the skins of wild 

 animals which they had killed in the chase. All this time the 

 rivers still ran on cutting their channels deeper, widening val- 

 lejs, and letting fall to lower levels the old glaciated gravels of 

 the hiU tops, until we have what some have distinguished as 

 high and low level gravels, the latter being frequently mixed 

 with or covering flint implements as they fell from higher to 

 lower positions on the river sides ; and as the carnivorous fol- 

 lowed the more harmless herbivorous animals in their immigra- 

 tion, so evil followed man, for many of these rude- shaped 

 flints were doubtlessly the weapons with which the ancient 

 Britons broke each other's heads, as they were also their only 

 means of obtaining fire. Such a mode was witnessed by Captain 

 M'Dakin when travelling in the Himalaya mountains. Some of 

 his followers who possessed tobacco, but neither pipe or the 

 civilised means of producing a light, excavated a small trench 

 in the ground about three feet long and an inch deep ; in this 

 they Laid the smooth twig of a tree, then fiUing it in with mud 

 or clay they carefully withdi-ew the twig, after having formed a 

 smaU crater at one end to act as a pipe bowl, in which the to- 

 bacco of the company was placed, the all necessary fire being- 

 produced by striking together two quartz pebbles, in such a 

 manner that the sparks fell on the cotton like pith of a weed, 

 much resembling the Mountain Cudweed, pulled up by the way- 

 side ; this being placed in the centre of a ball of chy grass it 

 was waved in the wind till it became a ball of fire. The light 

 thus obtained having been applied to the pipe, the company took 

 turn about by forming a mouth piece of their hands and so 

 inhaled the essence of the weed. In a similar manner the 

 makers of the flint flakes doubtlessly obtained fire, and let us 

 trust that tlioy were thankful for the light that they possessed, 

 although thej^ were without the consolations that tobacco seems 

 to afford their superiors in civilization of the nineteenth century. 



