156 REPORT— 1870. 



NoHh Tomb: 



Anterior permanent molar of the two sides. 



Posterior or large infantile molar of one side. 



Upper half of the parietal bone. All of a child of about four or five years of age. 



S.E. Tomb. 



A large number of fragments of bones, probably of the human adult, viz. : — 



Upper border of the right orbit, part of malar, small part of superior maxillary, 

 fragments of the parietal and other tabular bones of the cranium. 



Parts of several dorsal and lumbar a' ertebrse. 



Fragment of the sacrum. 



Very numerous small fragments of the long bones, especially of the femur, tibia, 

 and fibula ; small part of an upper rib. 



Some bones or fragments of the tarsus. 



There are to be remarked conchoidal fractures across the compact parts of the 

 shafts of the long bones, and frequently also longitudinal fissures externally. 



S.W. Tomb. 



Numerous fragments of the bones of an adult, apparently not of large size. 



Parts of the pterygoid process of the skull, part of the mastoid bone, and tabidar 

 bones of the skull. 



Processus dentatus and portion of the axis vertebra. 



Fragments of the long bones, viz. femm*, humerus, radius, ulna, tibia, fibula. 



Fragment of the ischium (?). 



On a Flint-flake Core found in the Upper Valley-gravel at Salforcl, 

 Mancliester. By John Plant, F.G.S. 

 The rivers Irwell and Mersey, from Manchester to liverpool, flow down a wide 

 valley, eroded through beds of Keuper or Bunter sandstone. The present river-bed 

 is of moderate width to Runcorn-gap, below which it becomes a wide estuary. In 

 earlier times this estuarine character may have extended inland even to Mancliester, 

 for wide tracks of gravels, sands, and silt spread away from the river banks on either 

 side ; under these lie the Boulder-clays and sands of the Postpleiocene or glacial 

 drifts. The oldest sands and gravels of estuarine origin lie the highest and most dis- 

 tant from the river, except over places where the Bunter beds crop out in high banks, 

 in some places 200 feet above and a mile beyond the river ; and from these beds 

 are a series of well-marked river-terraces, dropping inwards towards the river. 

 These are composed of old alluvium with smooth, flattened, and iron-stained pebbles 

 in layers of sand and fine silt. The lowest terrace is meadow land, at times deeply 

 flooded, and receiving new layers of silt. In the great flood of November 1866 three 

 inches were deposited in twenty- four hours. The oldest sands and gravels may pos- 

 sibly be related to the age of the high-level gravels of the river Somme, and to the 

 flint-weapon gravels of the south-east of England. Lancashire is a county almost 

 devoid of flints, either natural or artificial ; and thus weapons of the palaeolithic 

 age are altogether absent from its drifts, and not more than a score of weapons of the 

 neolithic age have been to the present discovered in its drifts and cave-deposits. 

 These later stone weapons are also poor in make, and have no racial peculiarities. 

 The only exception of a weapon with palaeolithic features is the one now described, 

 which fortunately was taken from the bed of drift in my presence, July 1869. It 

 was lying in a four-feet bed of laminated sandy silt, under six feet of river-gravel 

 and yellow clay, with rough gravels and the boulder-clays below. The excava- 

 tion was near the Ordsall Lane railway-station, about 1000 feet from the banks 

 of the river, and nearly 108 feet above the river level, the average level of the middle 

 teiTace higher up the valley. The deposit where the flint-core lay probably repre- 

 sents the age of the river when it flowed over the middle terrace. The flint-core 

 bears the size and shape of a horse's hoof; from the front curved face five fine flakes 

 have been struck, and smaller ones fi'om other parts. The original surface is shown 

 in three places, and encrustations derived from the soil adhere very firmly on the 

 fractured parts, supplying a strong proof that, whatever may have been its origin, 

 it had long lain in its bed under the river-gravels. 



