200 01^ THE SURFACE-DEPOSITS OE THE EALING DISTRICT. 



siderable interest, as it confirmed the evidence already laid before 

 the Society on the point by Messrs. Spurrell and Worthington 

 Smith. In the floors discovered by Mr. Spurrell at Crayford 

 the splinters had been knocked off the waterworn blocks of flint 

 in course of manufacture, and very few of them were worked. 

 In the case brought forward by the author the implements 

 were worked. Palaeolithic man lived at Crayford at a time when 

 the Thames brought down no foreign pebbles ; in the case before us 

 he is proved to have lived on the banks of the river while materials 

 derived from the boulder-drift were being deposited in the gravels. 

 In the one case he was probably preglacial, and in the other cer- 

 tainly postglacial in the valley of the Thames. 



Dr. Woodward pointed out that the best of the palaeolithic imple- 

 ments were made from fresh, undried flints just derived from the 

 chalk, and not from old pebbles. He thought that some of the im- 

 plements were brought from higher grounds, and were not manu- 

 factured on the spot where found. He congratulated the author on 

 the large collection which he had been able to bring together from 

 the Thames Yalley. 



Mr. Cheadle asserted that, from an examination of the sections, 

 he could state that the furrows spoken of by the author showed no 

 evidence of glacial origin, and that the foreign blocks were not found 

 in the furrows themselves, but were strewn about on the surface of 

 the field. 



Dr. Hicks agreed with the last speaker that there was no evidence 

 of the furrows having been caused by ice-action. He had seen 

 some of the sections in question with other members of the Geolo- 

 gists' Association. He thought there was good evidence of the 

 existence of the author's " Palaeolithic Ploors." 



Mr. R. MoF:NiroRD Deeley stated that the furrows described 

 by the author seemed to him to prove the existence of a late period 

 of cold, coming after the deposition of some of the valley- deposits. 



The Author said that the furrow-gravels were found over 200 feet 

 above 0. D., and rested on stratified sands and loamy beds, believed 

 to be Bagshot, bent and compressed together under the jagged 

 furrows. They could not have been formed by the washing-in of 

 gravel by running springs, as Mr. Cheadle suggested, because the 

 lowest strata or laminae are horizontal and parallel, and the squeezing 

 together is just beneath the gravel, where the pressure was actually 

 exerted, as shown in section. He asserted that he had found 

 pebbles of quartz, quartzite, greensand, &c. in the furrows them- 

 selves, and they also occurred, associated with small boulders of 

 granite, greenstone, Carboniferous Limestone, &c., on the surface of 

 the ground. The great mass of unworn implements, flakes and 

 fragments, 400 in number, were found within an area of about 

 40 feet square, the whole being covered up by brick-earth and trail. 

 These implements are quite distinct in character from those which 

 were much eroded, many of which might have been washed from 

 higher levels. The thick valley -gravels contain many pebbles of 

 quartzite and other foreign materials. He thought that the specimens 

 were of very different ages. 



