21 



of time required to form these deposits at so great an eleva- 

 tion above the present river courses, we must consider that 

 — taking the River Stour, near Canterbury, for instance — 

 the water confined to the narrow limits of the present 

 stream had once flowed at a much higher level, and filled 

 the valley from Wincheap on the one side to Harbledown 

 on the other, wealing away the strata on either side and 

 depositing the gravel and sand along its banks, and that the 

 present river is flowing through deposit made by the silt 

 and sediment formed during many thousand years. 



If they examined the drifts of sand and gravel in various 

 parts of England they would find, generally speaking, that 

 they presented nothing to show that they were associated 

 with anything existing at the present day ; nor would 

 they find any Roman or Saxon remains, except those 

 placed there artificially. Roman pottery was found 

 at various depths of strata, and in various positions, but it 

 was never found so associated that they could clearly say 

 that the pottery was deposited with the sand or gravel in 

 which it was found, except by some artificial means. That, 

 however, was not the case with the bones of extinct ani- 

 mals, such as the Elephas Priniigcnius, the extinct ox, hip- 

 popotamus, and the elk, whose bones they did find associated 

 with these gravel beds. It was also an interesting geological 

 fact that there were to be found in these beds of drift fresh 

 water shell.«, which were entirely wanting at the present 

 day in this country, and were only to be found in the delta 

 of the Nile, and some Asiatic rivers. Such was the deposit 

 at Reculver, in which some of the flint implements had 

 been found. 



A few years since the attention of geologists, throughout 

 Europe, was excited by the discovery of a large number of 

 flint implements, in a bed of gravel resting on chalk, in the 

 ▼alley of the river Somme, in France, this gravel being over- 

 laid by 20 or 30 feet of peat. M. Boucher de Perthes had 

 collected and described some flint hatchets which had been 



