Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/563

Rh deposits. This gravel is from 2 to 3 feet in thickness, and underlies a stratum of red brick-earth from 2 to 6 feet thick, which is again, in places, surmounted by sands and clay with angular flints about 4 feet in thickness, on which the surface soil reposes. This was the section exhibited in 1865, but the beds are very irregular, and the character of the section exposed in the pit varies considerably from time to time, as material is removed. In places the Drift-beds are faulted, as if by the giving way of the subjacent beds.

Fig. 419—Grindle Pit, Bury St. Edmunds.

A beautiful and absolutely perfect specimen from this pit is shown in Fig. 419. It was found in a black vein in the lower loamy bed, on February 4th, 1870. Though the implement has been most skilfully chipped, the edge is not in one plane, but when looked at sideways, shows an ogival curve. The regular contour is partly due to secondary working, but the edge is as sharp as on the day when the instrument was made. Several others of almost the same form, though not quite so delicately fashioned, came from the same pit, and may have been made by the same hands.

I have a fine pointed implement, (5 inches), also from the Grindle Pit. Another, ovate, is 7 inches in length.

A remarkably fine palæolithic flake from Thingoe Hill, Bury St. Edmunds, is shown in Fig. 419. It is water-worn, and much resembles some from the low-level gravels at Montiers, near Amiens, and Montguillain, near Beauvais. It belongs, of course, to a much earlier period than the mound in, on, or near which it was found.

As already observed, remains of shells, and some scales of fish, were found in the Drift-beds during the drainage works, as also some