186 Recent IViltshire Books, Pamphlets, Articles, &c. 



work with tlie view of popularising the study w^hich he himself follows 

 so enthusiastically. It therefore begins with very elementary matters, 

 butMr. Benjamin Harrison and his Ightham Eoliths come on the horizon 

 at page 5, and long before the end is reached there is plenty of strong 

 meat for grown men mingled with tbe milk for babes. With regard to 

 the much-discussed "Eoliths " the author says, " some people consider 

 these to represent an altogether separate and earlier industry (than the 

 Paloeoliths) ; e.g., at Alderbury, near Salisbury, they have been found 

 by Dr. H. P. Blackmore with never a true Palaeolithic implement 

 among them. The same is I am told the case in certain terraces of 

 gravel in Hampshire. At the same time implements of Paloeolithic 

 shape have been found on the Kentish Downs along with the ' Eoliths' 

 and in exactly the same mineral condition. They are older and ruder 

 than the Palaeoliths which have been dug out on similar sites from the 

 brick earth and they are found in a dififerent deposit, viz., an ancient 



gravelly drift In N. Wilts they are manifestly associated 



with a drift clay. In every case their condition and position, taken 

 together, show them to belong to a state of things prior to the cutting 

 out of the present river valley system. They have been discovered by 

 the author on Hackpen Hill at 875 feet above O.D. (sea level), on Mar- 

 tinsell at 940 feet, and on the Winterbourne Bassett fields at 550 feet 



to 600 feet above O-D These implements of Palaeolithic 



type are associated Avith numbers of ' Eoliths,' many of which are 

 merely trimmed rectangularly at the edges. The former are as much 

 abraded, striated (scratched by grit and ice), and stained brown as the 

 latter. The inference is that all are of the same age and industry. At 

 any rate it cannot be proven that those of ' Eolithic ' type are any older 

 than those of Palaeolithic shape. At the same time, partly on account 

 of the immense height above sea level and above most of Wiltshire and 

 the neighbouring country .... it is reasonable to conclude that 

 these are the oldest human implements and tools yet known in England. 

 These things being so, we have not yet in this country got. back to a 



time when man could not make a Palaeolithic implement 



Meantime what is to be said of Alderbury and similar sites ? Perhaps 

 that they represent a period of deterioration." It is hardly necessary 

 to say that if further study of the question enables the author to make 

 good the position he takes up here, his conclusions must have a very 

 important bearing on the whole question of the " Eolithic " implements. 

 An excellent sixpenny worth. 



ILeminisceuces of the past 80 years. A Paper read 

 at the Palace, Salisbury, at the **Orclinatorum 

 Conventus." By Francis Lear, M.A., the Arch- 

 deacon of Wilts. Jnne 7th, 1910. Price Threepence. 

 Brown & Co., Canal, Salisbury. 



Pamphlet, 6|in. x 5in. Preface and title 4 pp., unnumbered -j- 31. 



A very interesting and valuable resume hy one who has probably a 

 longer and wider memory of Church matters in the south of the county 

 than anybody else now living, of the former condition of things in the 



