XVII.] GEOLOGY OF THE THAMES BASIN. 



:85 



whether man shared possession of the Thames valley with 

 the group of animals, the remains of which are found in the 

 old fluviatile deposits of gravel and brick-earth. In the British 

 Museum, there has been, for many years, a rude spear-shaped 

 weapon in black flint, represented in Fig. 85. This was 

 found, associated with an elephant's tooth, in an excavation 

 near Gray's Inn Lane, London ; and a description of it was 

 published as far back as- 1715. It is indeed the earliest 

 recorded relic of human workmanship which has been found 



Fig. 85. — a palaeolithic implement, 

 from Gray's Inn Lane. 



I'"tg. 86 — A neolithic implement 

 from the Thames at London. 



in association with the ancient fauna of the Thames Valley. 

 Of late years, however, considerable attention has been 

 given to the subject, and many other flint implements have 

 been discovered in the high-level gravels of the Thames 

 basin. Acton, Ealing, Hackney and Highbury are localities 

 near London which have yielded such implements ; and 

 they have also been found in numbers, between Heme Bay 

 and the Reculvers, where they have fallen out of the gravel 

 which caps the chalk cliffs of the North-Kent coast. Even 



