﻿Vol. 64.] RECENT DISCOVEEIES OF PALEOLITHIC IMPLEMENTS. »*) 



derived from clay-deposits of Eocene age, but little remanies. 

 In some of the Leverstock-Green pits these deposits are still in 

 their original position/ In excavations in connexion with my 

 new house, 'Britwell,' on the borders of Berkhamsted Common, 

 I have found masses of bright ochreous clay and of Red Clay-with- 

 Flints, reposing on a much-eroded surface of Chalk. With the 

 flints in these deposits, some of which were of a mixed nature, 

 a number of large quartzite-pebbles (derived presumably from 

 Glacial beds) occurred. There was, moreover, found a slab of 

 ' Hertfordshire ' Lower Tertiary conglomerate (puddingstone), about 

 24 inches by 14 in superficies and about 5 inches thick, one 

 side of which, to the extent of about 10 inches by 3, has been 

 ground smooth, apparently by glacial action. 



In discussing the question of the occurrence of palaeolithic 

 implements at such high levels above the neighbouring valleys, 

 it would be wrong not to mention the discoveries of Mr. Benjamin 

 Harrison, of Ightham, who in Kent has obtained more or less 

 isolated implements at elevations of 760 and 770 feet above 

 Ordnance-datum, and a considerable number of them near Ash 

 at an elevation of over 500 feet. 



It seems to me probable, having all the conditions of the case 

 in view, that it is safest not to invoke river-action for the forma- 

 tion of the high-level deposits, which extend over a wide area and 

 are in the main argillaceous, and not gravelly or sandy in character ; 

 but to adopt Mr. Worthington Smith's view that in early times 

 lakes or marshes existed on these implementiferous spots, the 

 borders of which were inhabited by Palaeolithic Man. The evidence 

 which he has brought forward as to the implements having been, 

 in some of the Caddington pits, manufactured on the spot, most 

 fully corroborates this view. Moreover, in many places the Drift- 

 deposits are so impervious to water that at the present day 

 numerous ponds exist on their surface, some of which rarely, 

 if ever, become absolutely dry. 



I will only add that I have unfortunately not been able per- 

 sonally to visit all the localities that I have mentioned, but 

 in compiling this short paper I have been much indebted to Mr. 

 Worthington Smith for information given to me by him, whose 

 authority on the subject of Early Man is beyond all question. 

 Through his kindness I was able at the reading of this paper to 

 exhibit a series of specimens, two of which are figured. 



Discussion. 



Mr. Dale said that he had obtained, from the valleys of the Test 

 and Itchen in Hampshire, implements similar to those exhibited 



^ In Mr. Whitakei-'s 'Geology of London' Mem. Geol. Surv. vol. i (1889) 

 p. 208, is the following passage : — ' At Wood-Lane End kiln, more than a 

 mile east of Hemel Hempstead, it would seem that masses of the mottled 

 clay of the Eeading Beds are included in the brick-earth, or that there are 

 pipes of the former.' 



