122 RECENT FLINT FINDS. 



with marks of chipping on their surface, are scattered through 

 this clay. If the surface soil on which this ancient forest grew is 

 of the same age as the soil over the drift-beds (and I think this 

 very probable), then we have these flints in the same geological 

 position as those at Croyde, — an inference which is supported by 

 apparent traces of boulder-clay under both the drift and the sub- 

 marine forest; and, assuming that these split flints had a geo- 

 logical origin, their age might be fixed approximately, at the 

 latter end, or close of the Drift Period. 



Inside the estuary of the Taw, I have dug up flakes from the 

 soil of Horsey Island, from Braunton Greatfield, and in the valley 

 near Wrafton. 



Twelve miles up the valley of the Taw, I found very perfect 

 flakes on the surface of a ploughed field at Bartridge Farm, and 

 in forming a road through a Wood, in land which had never been 

 cultivated, the workmen dug out several ; and I traced the flakes 

 on the surface, up the hill-side, to 300 feet above the river. — On 

 this one farm about four hundred shattered flints were found, of 

 which one hundred were flakes. 



Eight miles further up the valley of the Taw, at Colleton 

 Barton, where I am breaking up ancient wood-land, my men 

 picked up a considerable number of flakes, many of them more 

 than a mile apart. 



These flints have been found on lands under my care, where 

 only I had opportunity of discovering them ; and there is little 

 doubt that they are scattered over the intervening lands which I 

 have not inspected. 



Thus, in North Devon, over an extent of country 20 miles 

 long and 10 miles wide, these peculiar flakes are found. I have 

 been told, and it is insisted on, by some leading philosophers, that 

 I have made the important discovery of an ancient manufactory 

 of pree-Adamite implements. But, independently of other con- 

 siderations, 200 square miles of country forms so large a workshop 

 for a few scattered savages, that I cannot concur in such an 

 opinion. 



I am indebted to Mr. Francis Hext for the information that 

 flint-flakes are very numerous around Dozmare Pool, 890 feet 

 above the sea. More than one hundred very perfect flakes have 

 been picked up there, and I dug some out of the soil. 



