BRITISH ASSOCIATION, &C. 223 



by the Etruscans, and was very superior to that in which the works of Thor- 

 waldsen and others were being copied at Copenhagen. He had no doubt it 

 had accumulated by being washed from the surface of the granite into a large 

 lake ; and he was not aware that any other combe in the neighbourhood 

 possessed the same sort of clay. There were indications of the Eomans, or 

 early Britons, having been acquainted with the bed, and of their having 

 worked it. The clay was very fine, and free from organic remains or other 

 extraneous matter ; it contained above 60 per cent, of silica and 20 per cent, 

 of alumina, with 7 per cent, of peroxide of iron, and considerable quantities 

 of soda and potass. In fact this clay was, in its mineral constituents, su- 

 perior to any other known to the Eomans ; and he had no doubt that many 

 Roman Amplwrce had been manufactured out of this identical deposit. Its 

 thickness, in some parts, was above 80 feet, and he thought the valley had 

 formerly been covered with this clay to its very summit. — Mr. Pengelly said 

 that clay of the same character, but not quite so fine, had been found further 

 up the valley, and had been used for brickmaking. One bed, 12 feet thick, 

 was underlaid by a layer of pebbles, in which the remains of man were 

 abundant ; and under the layer of stones was a still finer clay. — Mr. G. 

 Maw, who had examined the clay to ascertain what heat it would stand, 

 stated that one peculiarity about it was its extremely fine sub-division ; it 

 was almost impalpable. 



The Flint Flakes of Devon. 



Mr. T. M. Hall, F.G.S., read his paper on the " Method of forming the 

 flint flakes used by the early inhabitants of Devon " in pre-historic times. 

 The flint flakes and chippings found distributed throughout the soil in several 

 parts of North Devon, and those associated with the submerged forest at 

 Northam, occur so abundantly, that the question has sometimes been raised 

 whether or not they may have been naturally formed, or whether they may 

 be the results of some unknown kind of accidental fracture. In about ten 

 different localities flint cores have been found buried with the flakes, and 

 from a careful observation of them it appears that they are of great importance 

 in deciding this point ; for whilst a flake may possibly in some cases be 

 caused by an accidental blow, the cores show unmistakeable evidence of 

 design. They show also that owing to the extreme scarcity of flint all 

 through the northern parts of northern Devon and Cornwall, the early 

 inhabitants appear to have adopted in these districts a somewhat peculiar 

 method of forming the flint flakes, which were probably used by them as 

 knives and scrapers for domestic purposes, or as darts and arrow-heads for 

 war and the chase. All the flint flakes and cores from the ten different 

 stations along the coast from Croyde to Bude show a singular uniformity in 

 their design, and th,e method by which they were formed appears to have been 

 as follows : — A model having been selected, a flat surface or base was then 

 formed by striking off the flattest end as near the point as possible. If the 

 flint was cherty or showed an uneven and hackey fracture, it seems to have 

 been rejected in this first stage of its manufacture ; but if on the other hand 



