24 



supplied these Dorset villages with their domestic ware, and 

 asked me to ascertain the site of the kiln, and to go on with the un- 

 finished work of Mr. Warne. This I have done, and have been able 

 to make some interesting discoveries ; General Pitt Rivers considers 

 the pottery to be identical, both in character and in the form and 

 patterns of the vessels and utensils, some of which have eyelet-holes 

 for suspension, similar to those now in use by the labourers. Some 

 are furnished with a rim, intended probably to receive a cover. 



I have completed the examination of the Dewlish Elephant Bed, 

 and have traced it from end to end. It extends over the brow of 

 the escarpment which flanks the eastern side of the valley, filling in 

 a deep fissure in the chalk, over which the Pliocene stream flowed, 

 and of which no other trace remains. The deposit shows great 

 alternations in the force and strength of the stream, being sometimes 

 powerful enough to carry down the carcasses of huge elephants and 

 at other times gentle enough to convey the lightest materials. It 

 is permeated throughout by impalpable quartz-sand, originating 

 probably from extensive sand-dunes. The animal remains lay at 

 the upper part of the deposit, together with large and small 

 flints, some of which are highly polished. Although the deposit 

 yielded only the larger bones of elephants and none of the smaller, 

 nor indeed those of any other animal, it must not be inferred 

 that these only were borne into the fissure. The access of rain- 

 water to the bones, all of which lay near the surface, at the top of 

 the deposit, would dissolve the less massive bones, and obliterate 

 all traces of them ; this, as well as the absence of plants, is much to 

 be regretted. The discovery of the Pliocene Dewlish bed has 

 attracted the notice of British geologists. Professor Prestwich, in 

 a recent paper read before the Geological Society on the " Westleton 

 Beds " and Mr. Clement Reid on the " Pliocene Deposits of Great 

 Britain," 1890, bring it prominently forward. The elephas 

 meridionalis has been found in the Pliocene Cromer Forest Bed, 

 in the Upper Pliocene of the Val d'Arno, and of St. Prest, near 

 Chartres. The mammalian remains of the Val d'Arno, like those 

 of the Forest Bed, contain rhinoceros etruscus, and hippopotamus 



