Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 25.djvu/585

Rh by reference to the accompanying map (Pl. XX.). At about three miles distance from Broomhill and Brandon, on the north, a high tableland, of about a mile in width, divides the valley of the Little Ouse from that of the Wissey (which flows in the same direction). This hill (which forms the watershed of both rivers) is capped with drift- gravel and siliceous sands closely resembling those seen at Brandon, the quartzite pebbles, however, being somewhat less abundant. On the south side the river is bounded for some distance by the hills at Brandon and Lakenheath, on which the implements occur; and about seven miles further south, in the Larke Valley, at Icklingham, another well-known deposit of implements has been met with. West of these several localities is seen the great level of the Fens, extending through Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire into Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire, while to the eastward, passing by Santon Downham and Thetford, the Little Ouse is traced back to its source at Lopham Ford; and closely adjoining to the source, and only separated from it by a bank of sand 5 or 6 feet high and 200 yards wide, is found the source of the Waveney, which after running north-east, passing by Hoxne (another locality for flint implements), falls into the sea at Yarmouth. There seems to be little doubt that these valleys (of the Ouse and the Waveney) are derived from one continuous valley of submarine erosion, by which Norfolk was formerly cut off from the rest of the kingdom, and constituted an island.

We have clear evidence that even within the historical period the district to the westward through which the river flows, after leaving Brandon, was at a much lower level than at present, the valley having been filled up with peat, and thus brought to a dead level, or nearly so, extending over many hundred square miles. Polished flint implements of the Neolithic period have been often found lying below the peat or low down in it, as well as bronze celts and spear- heads; the peat varies in thickness from 1 or 2 feet to 20. or even 30 feet, and in it are found querns of pudding-stone and Roman antiquities. In many places in the level of the fens other unmistakeable proofs have been met with of the comparatively recent origin of these beds. In one place swaths of grass lying just as they were mown were found at the depth of 8 feet, and in other places, at depths varying from 10 to 20 feet, there have been found a smith's forge with his tools and horseshoes, tan-pits, a cart-wheel, and ancient causeways, and the skeletons of sea-fish, and boats or