Recent Wiltshire Books, Pamphlets, and Articles. 



Flints caps the chalk plateaus over the southern portion of the area, but 

 not on the Plain around Stonehenge. As to the Plateau Gravel, the 

 memoir states that " Outliers of Plateau, or High Terrace Gravel — for 

 the gravel-covered plateaus where well-preserved are seen to be 

 merely parts of terraces bounded by still higher bluffs — have only been 

 mapped in the south-eastern part of our area, in the country immediately 

 around Salisbury." "Dr. H. P. Blackmore has here [Bishopsdown, 

 between Salisbury and Old Sarum, 300 feet above the seaj found rude 

 flint implements of ' Eolithic ' type. He has also found similar imple- 

 ments on Thorny Down (533 feet), Laverstock (486 feet), Burroughs 

 Hill (319 feet) ; but, unfortunately, exposures are seldom visible in the 

 higher outliers, and we cannot say to what extent implements found on 

 or near the surface may belong to the gravel, or whether this gravel is 

 truly of fluviatile origin." In a large pit, however, south of Ivychurch, 

 Dr. Blackmore "has found many rude Eolithic implements at all levels 

 in the gravel," which is here 12 to 15 feet thick. 



From the Brick Earths of Fisherton the following species of mammalia 

 are noted as having been found .by Dr. Blackmore : — 



Bos bison 



taurus var. primigenius 



Canis lagopus 



lupus 



vulpes 



Cervus elaphus 

 Elephas primigenius 

 Equus caballus 

 Felis leo 



Hyaena crocuta 

 Lepus variabilis ? 

 Microtus nivalis 



ratticeps 



Myodes torquatus 

 Ovibos moschatus 

 Eangifer tarandus 

 Bhinoceros antiquitatis 

 Spermophilus erythrogenoides 

 " No trace of erratics has yet been met with in this area, and it seems 

 probable that the peculiar far-transported blocks seen in the middle of 

 Stonehenge were brought from low lands now destroyed by, or sunk be- 

 neath the sea, lying off the present mouth of the Avon. An erratic-strewn 

 plain only rising a few feet above the present sea-level seems in quite 

 recent geological times to have fringed our south coast, though now it is 

 only to be seen on the lee side of the Isle of Wight, especially in the 

 Selsey peninsula ; whence P. J. Martin suggested that the igneous blocks 

 in Stonehenge were derived. But that these erratics are not merely 

 confined to the Sussex coast is proved by the abundance of similar far- 

 transported blocks under the sea as far west as Torbay and the Eddystone. 

 Three or four thousand years ago, which seems to be the approximate date 

 of the erection of Stonehenge, a belt of flat land like that of Selsey 

 probably existed under the lee of the Isle of Purbeck ; and over such 

 a flat blocks of rock originally from Brittany, Cornwall, and the Channel 

 Islands, might be collected and carried up the Avon on rafts." 



It is needless to say that this memoir and map are of the first im- 

 portance for the study of the geology of South Wilts. 



ClirOllOlOgy Of WiltOll, also an account of its Bishops, Abbesses, 

 Eectors, Mayors, Members of Parliament, Churches, Eoyal Charters, 



