GEOLOGY 



block of flint was restored.^ In the implement-bearing gravels of 

 Galley Hill, Northfleet, human bones were found which may possibly 

 be of Paleolithic age.^ 



Old fluviatile deposits are particularly numerous in the Medway 

 valley, and must represent a long period of erosion, as ancient river 

 gravels occur as high as 300 feet above the present stream at East 

 Mailing/ In the brick-earths belonging to this valley, which fill wide 

 ' pipes ' and open joints in the Kentish Rag around Maidstone, many 

 mammalian bones have been obtained, including those of mammoth, 

 rhinoceros, hyena, reindeer, bos, horse, etc., with a few land shells. 

 Similar fossils have occasionally been found in other parts of the valley.* 



Of still greater interest is the large series of remains which has been 

 collected from a fissure in the Kentish Rag near Ightham, in the valley 

 of the Shode or Plaxtole tributary of the Medway.® These represent 

 most of the large animals last mentioned, along with the roedeer, Arctic 

 fox and common fox, and besides these, the bones of numerous small 

 mammals, birds and reptiles, which were obtained by carefully sifting the 

 material from the fissure. Among these smaller animals were several 

 bats, shrews and voles, with the Norwegian and Arctic lemmings and 

 the pika or tailless hare. Some of these animals are characteristic of 

 the present ' steppe fauna ' of northern Siberia, and they afford strong 

 support to the view* that a cold dry climate prevailed in this part of 

 England during some portion of Pleistocene times. The frog, toad, 

 newt, slow-worm, common snake and viper were also recognized ; and 

 the birds' bones represented the skylark, with probably the song-thrush, 

 wheatear, wagtail, buzzard, common duck and gull. Numerous land 

 and freshwater shells, with a few insect and plant remains, were also 

 found in this prolific fissure. 



Another richly fossiliferous deposit deserving mention is the small 

 patch of gravel and loam worked out many years on the western edge 

 of the little valley at Folkestone, under the old Battery, which yielded 

 remains of the mammoth, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, Irish elk, rein- 

 deer, bison, bos, horse, etc.'' 



The valleys of the Stour and the Darent, though less fossiliferous, 

 bear similar testimony to long-continued fluviatile erosion, but we have 

 no space for further details under this head.^ 



1 See F. C. J. Spurrell. ' On the discovery of the place where Paleolithic Implements were made 

 at Crayford,' Quart. Jouitt. Geol. Soc. (1880), xxxvi. 544-8. 



2 E. T. Newton, ' On a Human Sliull and Limb Bones found in the Palsolithic Terrace-Gravel at 

 Galley HiU, Kent,' Quart. Jourti. Geol. Soc. (1895), li. 505. 



^ Mem. Geol. Survey, 'Geology of the Weald,' pp. 172-88. 



* e.g. a femur of rhinoceros was recently obtained in drainage-works at Tonbridge, at the southern 

 edge of the Medway flat. See also subsequent article ' Palaeontology',' p. 31. 



5 W. J. Lewis Abbott, ' The Ossiferous Fissures near Ightham ' ; and E. T. Newton, F.R.S., ' The 

 Vertebrate Fauna from the Fissure . . . ,' Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1894), 1. 171-210. See also 

 ' Palaeontology,' p. 3 I . 



® C. Reid, 'Desert or Steppe Conditions in Britain,' Natural Science (1893), iii. 367-70. 



7 S. J. Mackie, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. (1851), vii. 257. See also 'Geology of the Weald,' 

 p. 163, for other references. 



8 Among other localities for Paleolithic implements in Kent, probably derived from the River Drift, 



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