162 FLINT IMPLEMENTS IN KENT. chap. ix. 



discolored and of a peculiar bright light-brown color, similar 

 to that of the old fluviatile gravel in the cliff. 



Another flint implement was found in 1860, bj- Mr. T. 

 Leech, at the foot of the cliff between Heme Bay and the 

 Reculvers, and on further search five other specimens of the 

 spear-head pattern so common at Amiens. Messrs. Prestwich 

 and Evans have since found three other similar tools on the 

 beach, at the base of the same wasting cliff, which consists of 

 sandy eocene strata. Upon these, at the top of the cliff, is a 

 pebbly deposit of fresh-water origin, about fifty feet above 

 the sea-level, from which the flint weapons must have been 

 derived. Such old alluvial deposits now capping the cliffs of 

 Kent seem to have been the river-beds of tributaries of the 

 Thames before the sea encroached to its joresent jjosition and 

 widened its estuary. On following up one of these fresh- 

 water deposits westward of the Eeculvers, Mr. Prestwich 

 found in it, at Chislet, near Grove Ferry, the Cyrena Jlumi- 

 naiis among other shells. 



The changes which have taken place in the physical geo- 

 graphy of this part of England during, or since, the post- 

 pliocene period, have consisted j^artly of such encroachments 

 of the sea on the coast as are now going on, and partl}^ of 

 a general subsidence of the land. Among the signs of the 

 latter movement may be mentioned a fresh-water formation 

 at Faversham, below the level of the sea. The gravel there 

 contains exclusively land and fluviatile shells, of the same 

 species as those of other localities of the post-pliocene allu- 

 vium before mentioned, and must have been formed when 

 the river was at a higher level and when it extended farther 

 east. At that era it was probably a tributary of the Rhine, 

 as represented by Mr. Trimmer in his ideal restoration of the 

 geography of the olden time.* For England was then united 

 to the continent, and what is now the German Ocean was 



* Quarterly Geological Journal, vol. ix. pi. 1.1,, No. 4. 



