C. M. Wallace— Flint-implements from Richmond. 195 



Art. XXIV.— On Flint-implements from the Stratified Drft of 

 the vicinity of Richmond, Virginia ; by Chaeles M. Wallace. 



The James Kiver, upon the left bank of which Richmond is 

 situated, approaches the city from the southwest — running in 

 the Mannikin country over fields of bituminous coals, and 

 pourmg its waters in headlong rapids over a broad belt of 

 granite, through which it has cut a channel sixty feet or more 

 deep. Huge bowlders, some of them weighing many tons, 

 crowd the drift-beds near the falls, and strew the surface of the 

 uplands below them. Many of those which were in the way of 

 the early settlers have been broken up and removed, but others 

 that remain, sufficiently indicate the course and level of the 

 Drift, In some instances that I have noted, the marks of 

 ancient pot-holes are legibly impressed upon them, proving 

 unmistakably the fact of their descent from the rapids above. 



The trend of the prehistoric river is distinctly traced on 

 its south side by the great upper terrace, which probably 

 formed one of its borders before the bed-rock on the Ricli- 

 mond side had been scooped out. As far as I have explored 

 this even and lofty plane— say twenty miles up the basin 

 —it appears to be capped on its inner slope with gravel of the 

 same general character as that which has been excavated at 

 corresponding levels on the opposite shore. A succession of 

 parallel slopes of limited extent show how the current has 

 been diverted from a straight-forward course, and how, upon 

 approaching the tide-water, it has slid away to the north side, 

 forming a wide horseshoe of several miles in extent. 

 ^ The shelving of the left bank with its relief of hills is quite 

 in contrast with the picturesque island -terraces upon which 

 the neighboring city of Manchester is built. Main street in 

 -Richmond runs through the center of the drift-field which 

 abuts upon the steep sides of the city hills, and converges to a 

 point before being swept by the freshets of Gillies Creek and 

 James River. It is on the exposed flank of this field that I 

 have found some of the best specimens of drift-flints in my 

 collection. 



. My first discoveries were made a little more than a year ago 

 m the elevated beds of the Appomattox, below its falls, and in 

 the brick-earths that uniformly overlie the drifts of this valley. 

 One of the implements I extracted from a deep bed of brick- 

 clay on the left bank of James River, which has been recently 

 cut away for an avenue to the Free Bnd^Q ; it was firmly im- 

 bedded in the stiff clay— on its flat side— about seven or eight 

 teet below the surface"of the terrace, which at this point atfciins 

 an elevation of forty or more feet above the rapids. It is of 



