A HISTORY OF SURREY 



is extended. These implement-bearing deposits occur for the most part 

 on the slopes of the existing valleys at varying heights above the present 

 streams ; but at Limpsfield worked flints have been found in an ancient 

 gravel which, though probably originally belonging to the Darent 

 drainage system, now lies on the watershed between the Darent and 

 the Medway at an altitude of 500 feet above sea level. 



It is of course in the larger valleys that the valley-deposits attain 

 their widest development ; hence in Surrey we find that the old river- 

 gravels and flood-loams, and also the more recent alluvium, are thickest 

 and most extensive in the vicinity of the Thames. The older gravels fringe 

 the valley irregularly, in somewhat ill-defined terraces at varying elevations, 

 throughout its extent, but are generally widest near the confluence of the 

 larger tributaries with the main river. At the lower levels they are well 

 seen between Walton and Petersham ; between Richmond and Wands- 

 worth ; and between Wandsworth and Deptford ; while the remnants of 

 high terraces are found on Kingston Hill, Wimbledon Common, Rich- 

 mond Hill and Putney Heath ; and again at Clapham, Balham and other 

 places. 1 It is however on the northern side of the river in Middlesex 

 and in Essex, and on the southern side in Kent, that the Thames Valley 

 Drifts reach their greatest importance both in extent and in fossil con- 

 tents. Among the mammalian remains which they have yielded in these 

 counties we may mention those of the wolf, lion, hyaena, bear, bison, 

 musk-ox, reindeer, Irish elk, horse, elephant, mammoth, rhinoceros, 

 hippopotamus, beaver, etc., some being of species now extinct ; and along 

 with these are many land and freshwater shells, all except two or three 

 belonging to species still living in England. It is in association with 

 these mammalian remains that the Palaeolithic implements are found, in 

 some places in considerable abundance ; and in the study of these rude 

 implements the sciences of geology and archasology join hands. In Surrey, 

 as instances of the occurrence of the fauna, we may mention that elephant 

 remains have been obtained from Thames Ditton, Kingston and other 

 places in the Thames Valley, and Palaeolithic implements at Cookham, 

 East Sheen, Battersea Rise, Wandsworth, Lewisham and other places ; in 

 the valley of the Wey similar relics of elephant have been found in the 

 neighbourhood of Shalford, at Waverley near Farnham, in gravels 150 

 feet above the present river between Alton and Godalming (where Palaeo- 

 lithic implements are very abundant, especially in the pits near Wrackle- 

 sham), and again along with a flint implement at Pease Marsh ; in the 

 valley of the Mole remains of elephant have been obtained at Charlwood, 

 Dorking, Betchworth and Petridge Wood Common, with those of rhi- 

 noceros also at the last named place ; remains of the horse, rhinoceros and 

 elephant at Sutton 2 ; the horse, rhinoceros, reindeer and roebuck from 



Among recent papers on this subject, and for references to previous literature, consult 

 H. W. Monckton, Quart. Journ. Geol, Soc., vol. xlviii. (1892) pp. 29-47, and vol. liv. (1898) 

 pp. 184-195 ; and Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. xiii. pp. 74-81 ; and A. E. Salter, ibid. vol. xv. 

 (1898) pp. 264-286. 



3 See W. W. Watts, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. Iv. (1897) p. ii. 



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