in. THE OCR. THE THAME. THE RENNET. 41 



by the bright stream of Kennet, without thinking of Hampden 

 riding away to a lingering death, and Falkland struck down at the 

 first onset of Byron's Horse ? 



' Nulla dies unquam memori vos exiraet aevo.' 



The Kennet. The drainage of the Kennet is included in a great 

 natural basin of the chalk of Berkshire, Wiltshire, and Hampshire, 

 within which the nearly-straight stream, flowing from west to east, 

 gathers many small branches, which themselves are the stems of 

 more numerous smooth dry valleys. The lowest parts of this summit 

 of drainage, 500 to 600 feet, are toward the west, where the chalk 

 is nearly cut through by ancient watery action. The highest parts 

 of the border on the north (White Horse Hill and Marlborough 

 Downs) reach 856 and 887 feet, and on the south (Inkpen) 975 

 feet. 



In the eastern part of its course the Kennet enters the lowest 

 tertiaries, and discloses above gravelly and sandy layers, near 

 Newbury, a considerable surface of peat, containing remains of 

 animals of the post-glacial age, not so ancient as the mammoth, 

 whose remains occur in the gravel. This peat is a mark of stagnant 

 water, like that in the Valley of the Somme, which in some other 

 respects the Vale of Kennet resembles. 



Among these remains are those of the beaver, and a cranium of 

 man has been mentioned. Remains of the beaver have also been 

 found in a peaty district near Chippenham, bones of rhinoceros 

 tichorhinus in a corresponding tract near Wantage, and the wild- 

 boar and long-fronted ox were obtained, with a human cranium, 

 near Swindon. Close to Oxford, on the course of the Cherwell 

 above Magdalen College, were found in peaty gravel teeth of 

 elephas primigenius, and bones of horse, ox, deer, wolf, &c. On 

 the whole, however, marshes and peat grounds are not to be de- 

 scribed as frequent in a large range of country round Oxford. 



