1872.] LANE FOX PALEOLITHIC IMPLEMEN-TS. 457 



able for the sharpness of their edges, all the others being blunted by 

 contact with the other stones of the gravel. These were found in 

 seams of white sandy clay, 9 feet from the surface, beneath deposits of 

 gravel and brick-earth : the position of these flakes is of interest, on 

 account of the edges of the whole of them being as sharp as when 

 they were flaked off" from their cores, proving that, whilst the majority 

 of the flakes and implements in this place were carried down by the 

 water, and rolled in the gravel, especially that referred to in Sec- 

 tion B, these, on the contrary, must have been flaked off on the 

 spot, and dropped into the soft sandy bottom of the river in this 

 place, after which the deposits of gravel and brick-earth must have 

 accumulated over them. Although I did not myself discover these 

 flakes in situ, I satisfied myself of the correctness of the accounts 

 given me by finding some of these sharp flakes in the excavated ma- 

 terial with the soft, sandy, clay-deposit adhering to them. [Some of 

 these were exhibited.] 



At Mill Hill, on the other side of the ravine of the Acton brook, 

 about half a mile to the westward, a very large flake was found in a 

 seam of sand, 7 feet 3 inches from the surface, beneath stratifled 

 gravel interspersed with seams of yellow sand, the surface being 80 

 feet above the datum. 



At Ealing Dean, two miles to the westward of Acton, in some 

 gravel excavated for the construction of a sewer, the surface being 

 92 feet above the datum, I found two implements, one of which is an 

 exceedingly fine specimen ; it has a slender point, and is 5 inches in 

 length and 2| broad, rounded at the butt-end. It is worthy of notice 

 that, although I watched this place for some months, examining the 

 cuttings in the gravel for the foundations of houses along the very 

 same piece of road in which the implements were found, and although 

 the workmen were expressly instructed what to look for, I never 

 afterwards found so much as a single flake in this gravel. Upon 

 inquiry, I found that the cuttings for the sewer were carried much 

 deeper than the foundations of the houses ; and the implements must 

 therefore have been brought up from the very bottom of the gravel- 

 bed, thus conflrming in a remarkable manner the experience derived 

 not only from Acton, but from other similar deposits of drift-gravel, 

 in which the implements are aU found to lie almost invariably at the 

 bottom of the gravel. I was particular in examining into this ques- 

 tion, because I am aware that there is a natural tendency amongst 

 workmen to say that what they find is "right down at the very 

 bottom ;" as, however, the cuttings at Acton were made in steps, and 

 the several levels were in most cases excavated upon diff'erent days, 

 it was easy to test the truth of their statements ; and I found that in 

 ever}'- instance the implements came out of the lowest stratum of the 

 gravel. Here the largest flint stones lie, and with them the imple- 

 ments, mostly of the dimensions of the larger stones, so that it was 

 common for the more experienced workmen to say that they should 

 find no implements tiU they got down into the coarse gravel ; the 

 smaller flakes, however, were not so invariably at the bottom. 



To the north of the Great "Western Railway, between Hanwell and 



