172 MR. W. J. LEWIS ABBOTT ON THE [May 1 894, 



one to expect very much from the Kentish fissures ; it is true that 

 references to the ossiferous ' pipes ' date as far back as the classic 

 days of Buckland, 1 but from his time to that of Prof. Boyd Dawkins 

 only 7 species of vertebrates have been recorded, and 5 species of 

 mollusca. I have visited a number of these pipes in the neighbour- 

 hood of Maidstone and the Shode Valley, and have no hesitation 

 in saying that they are altogether of a different nature from the 

 fissures which will be described in the following pages. The former 

 are surface-deposits, pure and simple, irrespective of the various 

 depths and extensions to which they have cut into the underlying 

 strata, bones and implements being distributed through them exactly 

 as in an ordinary brick-earth. 



II. Fissures in the South-east op England : 



HlSTOEY OF THE ShODE VALLEY. 



Fissures abound in the hard strata of the Wealden district 2 from 

 the North to the South Downs inclusive ; at times they are mere empty 

 cracks, never having been brought into direct contact with either the 

 surface itself or even surface-waters. At others they open more or 

 less distinctly above, sufficiently to admit of being filled with land- 

 wash or blown sand ; or a river gets access to them and carries in and 

 deposits its suspended material, or its flotsam and jetsam. Again, 

 they are occasionally wide enough to admit of human habitation, some 

 now containing tons of the relics of human occupation, terminating 

 in the midden period. There are yet others which, so far as we 

 can see, have never been open at the surface : their presence has only 

 been revealed by the denuding action of rivers in excavating their 

 channels into the rocks in which the fissures have existed, and, after 

 having thus broken into their secret chambers, the rivers have depo- 

 sited within them those heterogeneous masses characteristic of the 

 burdens of a stream. At times situation has favoured an entire fill- 

 ing of the fissures ; at others the height to which they are filled 

 marks the limit of the power of the flood-waters at a particular period 

 in the valley's history, leaving an empty chamber above. Into this 

 latter meteoric waters subsequently enter, which, percolating through 

 the limestone and hassock, dissolve out part of the lime, not only of 

 the rocks, but of the bones, and redeposit it all over the chamber 

 and for a certain distance into the fissure-deposit, in the various forms 

 of arragonite, flos ferri, stalagmite, and stalactite, until at last the 

 contents of the fissure become sealed down. In some other cases, 



1 These pipes are described by W. Topley, F.K.S., in his memoir on ' The 

 Geology of the Weald,' 1875, pp. 181-184. That author also gives copious 

 bibliographic references to the subject, to which the reader is hereby referred 

 in order to save repetition. 



2 I unsuccessfully worked a number of these before I located those here 

 described, but upon enquiry I found that Mr. B. Harrison had already obtained 

 bones from the latter, which he very kindly passed on to me, giving me. at the 

 same time an introduction to the quarry-owner. The latter has also taken 

 great interest in my work, and kindly allowed his men to wheel away the debris 

 for me, a service for which I am greatly indebted to him. 



