20 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
An account of flint weapons discovered at Hoxnc, in Suffolk, by John Erere, 
Esq., P.R.S., and E.A.S., in a letter to the Rev. John Brand, Secretary; read 
June 22, 1797. 
Sir, — I take the liberty to request you to lay before the Society some flints 
found ia the parish of Hoxne, in the county of Suffolk, wliich, if not particularly 
objects of cuiiosity in themselves, must, I think, be considered in that light, 
from the situation in which they were found. See pi. xiv. xv. 
Frompl. xiv., "Archseologia," vol. xiii. Size 1 From pi. xv., " Archaeologia," vol. xiii. Size, 
5 inches by 3 inches. | 7^ inches by -i inches. 
Reduced Outlines (scale one-fourth), of the Fhnt Implements foimd by Mr. Frere, at Hoxne, 
Suffolk. A.D,, 1797. 
They are, I think, evidently weapons of war, fabricated and used by people 
who had not the use of metals. They lay in great numbers at the depth of 
about twelve feet, in a stratified soil, which was dus^ for the pui'pose of raising 
clay for bricks. 
The strata are as follows : — 
1. Vegetable earth, one and a haK feet. 
2. Argill, seven and a half feet. 
3. Sand, mixed with shells and other marine substances, one foot. 
4. A gravelly soil, in which the flints are found, generally at the rate of five 
or six in a square yard, two feei. 
In the same stratum are frequently found small fragments of wood, very 
perfect when first dug up, but which soon decomposes on beiag exposed to the 
air ; and, in the stratum of sand, (No. 3,) were found some extraordinary bones, 
particularly a jaw-bone of enormous size, of some unknown animal, with the 
teeth remaining in it. I was very eager to obtain a sight of this ; and 
finduig it had been carried to a neighbouring gentleman, I inquired of him, but 
learned that he had presented it, together with a large thigh bone, found in the 
same place, to Sir Ashton Lever, and it, therefore, is probably now in Par- 
kinson's museum. 
The situation in which these weapons are found may tempt us to refer them 
to a very remote period indeed ; even beyond that of the present world ; but 
whatever our conjectures on that head may be, it will be difiicult to account for 
the stratum in which they lie being covered by another stratum, which, on this 
supposition, maybe conjectured to have been once the bottom of the sea. The 
