xvin. FLINT IMPLEMENTS. 475 



nor even in the superficial parts where bones of horses are mixed 

 with them, as in the Cherwell valley above Magdalen College. 

 Their date is prehistorical in Europe, and, in the limited tract 

 of the Thames valley, may be set down as belonging to and 

 following the so-called glacial sera. They existed during the 

 whole or part of the long period of time which witnessed the 

 accumulation of the valley gravels, before the river flowed in its 

 actual channel, before the dry gravel plains at the embouchure 

 of the Windrush tempted the poor f aborigines' to dig their hollow 

 dwellings, and before the reindeer retreated from Gaul and Albion 

 to the still snowy regions of the north. 



But something more is to be said. Though the search for 

 chipped and polished flints in the Oxford gravels has up to this 

 date been quite unproductive, it is not so at Wittenham. There 

 at different times, in the gravel banks above the river-floods, or 

 else in the gravelly river-bed, a few remarkable specimens have 

 been found. 



Diagram COI1I. Implements from the drift. Scale one-fifth of the objects. 



1. Flint Kude form of the type of St. Acheul chipped on the face shewn, the 



other being obtained by a single stroke. Others of this form and of larger 

 size occurred at Long Wittenham, in gravel ; and one in a peat bed at 

 Winslow, resting on boulder clay. 



2. ^lint Nearly circular, thick, chipped all round and on both faces. Long 



Wittenham. 



3. Flint Lanceolate in form, thin, chipped all round and over both surfaces. 



Hounslow Heath. 



Those dredged from the river-bed have probably been removed 

 a short distance by watery action from the gravel-banks above. 



