Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 28.djvu/558

462 the high terrace, for flint implements; and as a proof that the total absence of human relics did not arise from any neglect in looking for them, I may mention that one of my most experienced men, who, on account of his numerous finds in the high terrace I called my flint-finder, was afterwards employed in Brown's Orchard; and although he laid down with his own hands upwards of three miles of gravel upon roads, and the same inducements were offered him as on the former occasion, he never found in this gravel so much as a single flake or chip which could be ascribed to the hand of man. This circumstance, tallying as it does with the result of my previous examination of the mid terrace, as before mentioned, near Hammersmith, is worthy of record. It would be unsafe to build an hypothesis upon negative evidence of this kind; but the gravel-excavations for the New Law Courts in the Strand, where the surface is about 40 feet above the Ordnance datum, and which is consequently on the level of the mid terrace, were found by Mr. Price, who examined them carefully from time to time, to be totally devoid of worked flints. The historical drift-implement of Gray's Inn Lane must have been found between the 60- and 70-feet line, and consequently on the level of the high terrace; and the flint found by Mr. Evans at Highbury was at a much higher level. It may, I think, be stated as a fact, that no flint of the drift-type in this region has hitherto been found below the 50-feet line, except in the bed of the Thames itself. From the Thames I have obtained one implement of drift-type; and Mr. Sparrow Simpson is in possession of a remarkably fine specimen, also from the bed of the Thames.

On the south side of the river my researches have been less complete than on the north side; I, however, examined the gravel-pits of the high terrace at East Sheen. The workmen had already been put on the look-out for implements by previous searchers, but, up to the time I visited the spot, had found nothing. In the high-terrace gravel at Wandsworth and Battersea Rise, after a fruitless search in several gravel-pits, and after carefully walking over some miles of gravel laid upon roads, I at last discovered one implement, together with a flake, lying on a heap of gravel at the junction of Gray-shot Road and the Wandsworth Road upon Battersea Rise. I made many inquiries to ascertain the exact position from which this gravel was obtained; I was informed by a workman that it came from an open gravel-pit within a few yards of the spot. The surface at this pit was between the 50- and 60-feet line, and it occupies exactly the same position above the strip of London Clay as the implement- bearing gravel at Acton. It is extremely probable that it came from this pit; but it is certain that it came from some part of Battersea Rise; for the quantity of gravel which is obtained from pits in this neighbourhood makes it extremely improbable that this particular heap should have been imported from elsewhere. Moreover the absence of implements in the gravel of this hill generally, makes it the more probable that it came from the particular pit near which it was found, as this pit had been but little worked; and it is possible, therefore, that the heap in question may have been the first fruits of