FLINT FLAKES, 225 



reference to the question loliere, I allude to the locality of the 

 South of England from the Lizard to Bedford Well in the East- 

 bourne Marshes, considered as part of Pevensey level. The time 

 when these subsoils were deposited will be assumed to have been 

 when glacial conditions prevailed over the British Isles, and during 

 the period when the South of England was rising above the water, 

 — perhajDS, geologically, soon after the chalk hills had been sub- 

 jected to the action of iceberg ploughs. This latter view of the 

 action of icebergs is taken from Campbell's visit to Labrador to 

 see their action and to track their spoor, or traces, across the con- 

 tinent of North America, — views which have recently been ex- 

 tended to the British Isles, in his work entitled "Frost and Fire." 

 The rolling of flints beneath an iceberg plough, furrowing the 

 chalk bottom of the ocean, would supply, in much better manner 

 than any which I have referred to, machinery for the conchoiclal 

 breakage of flints into conical forms, from which chips have been 

 split ofi". It is another variety of natural force for the production 

 of Flint Flakes of Lyell's First Stone Period. These remarks 

 refer to the question, hoiv they might have been made. 



The flints from Croyde Bay, found by Mr. Whitley, and those 

 from other sea-beaches, are probably secondary conditions of re- 

 moval of the deposit of subsoils, like those of Mylor Downs on 

 killas, or of Crousa Downs on the diallage and serpentine of the 

 Lizard. The subsoil of Cranborne Chace and the South Downs 

 found as patches, probably of tertiary rocks, forms the subsoil of 

 the highest part of the hills towards the Wealden. The flints on 

 Haldon and the adjoining i^iills to the eastward will be included, 

 as the remains of shattered rocks deposited by water in motion, 

 during the geological epoch commonly called the Glacial Period. 



It has been, however, my chief object to express my conviction 

 in favour of the view that the Flint Flakes of Lyell's First Stone 

 Period were made by natural causes ; either by the general com- 

 pression occasioned by the relations of subsidence and upheaval, 

 or by the action of an iceberg plough ; and I consider this opinion 

 to be perfectly consistent with the view that Man may have used 

 these flints as implements before he learned the art of fashioning 

 them to suit his purposes, either by means of heat obtained by 

 rubbing, or by blows from any kind of hammer not made of 

 metal. 



