﻿1861.] 



PRESTWICH FOSSIL FLINT IMPLEMENTS. 



363 



calities in this country^as well as abroad. It is not my object at pre- 

 sent to enter into a full account of these additional discoveries, or 

 to touch upon the many and tempting theoretical considerations 

 which suggest themselves, but which yet require further and more 

 varied data. It is for these reasons that I limit myself to a brief stra- 

 tigraphical description of these localities, for the purpose of directing 

 attention to them before our Session closes, and also to suggest a 

 few other localities where search should be made, in the hope that 

 during the ensuing summer other members of the Society, who may 

 have the opportunity of visiting some of these places, may join in the 

 search and discover fresh facts to throw additional light upon this 

 interesting inquiry. 



Suffolk. — In the course of the summer of 1860 Mr. Warren, an 

 antiquary residing at Ixworth, near Bury St. Edmonds, searching for 

 Eoman antiquities at Icklingham, between that town and Mildenhall, 

 received from one of the workmen a peculiarly worked flint imple- 

 ment. The man told him he found it at a depth of 4 feet, in digging 

 the gravel at Rampart Hill. Shortly afterwards Mr. Warren in 

 looking over a heap of gravel by the road-side in that neighbourhood, 

 found another specimen 5 inches long and of similar form. He 

 communicated the discovery to Mr. Evans, and this gentleman and 

 myself took an early opportunity of visiting the place. In descend^- 

 ing the valley of the River Lark, below Bury St. Edmonds, we 

 traced, at a level a little above the river, a nearly continuous bank 

 of gravel. At Elempton I discovered in this gravel a small frag- 

 ment of some mammalian bone*, but neither there nor elsewhere 

 did we meet with any flint implements. The gravel is composed 

 chiefly of sub-angular flints in an ochreous sandy matrix. Mixed 

 with it are a considerable number of siliceous pebbles from the con- 

 glomerate beds of the New Red Sandstone, with pebbles of the older 

 rocks, and fragments derived from the boulder-clay, than which, both 

 from its position and these mineral contents, I believe it to be newer. 

 It is spread out in rough irregular beds interstratified with seams of 

 sand. We could find no shells. The following section (fig. 1) shows 

 the relation of this gravel, a, to the valley and to the boulder-clay. 



Although the two specimens in Mr. Warren's collection want 

 more conclusive evidence as to their original position, yet neither 

 Mr. Evans nor I feel much doubt of their derivation from true drift- 

 gravels ; for in shape, staining, and condition they agree precisely 

 with the flint implements of the valley of the Somme. The Ickling- 

 ham gravels should now be the object of a careful and long-con- 

 tinued search. This is the second locality where flint implements 

 have been found in Suffolk ; Hoxne being situated in the north-east 

 part of the county adjacent to Norfolk and in the valley of the 

 Waveney, which runs into the German Ocean. Icklingham, on the 

 contrary, is within a short distance of Cambridgeshire, and in the 

 valley of the Lark, flowing into the Ouse, which empties itself into 

 the Wash at Lynn. 



* Teeth of the Elephas primigenius are found in the gravel elsewhere in the 

 neighbourhood of Bury St. Edmonds. 



