Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/602

580 315 feet, so that the valley must have been excavated to the depth of at least 80 feet since the gravels were deposited.

The implement was found at the base of the sandy gravel at a distance of about 60 yards from the front of Saltley College. In the same beds and in a small area, some 10 yards square, were found a number of fractured quartzite pebbles, which though not presenting such distinct signs of design may possibly owe their forms to human workmanship. Some of the chipped pieces of quartzite in the caves of Creswell Crags are rude in the extreme. The discovery of this well-fashioned specimen suggests some interesting considerations.

It has been held that the absence of palæolithic implements in Britain north of an imaginary line drawn from about the mouth of the Severn to the Wash, is due to glacial conditions having prevailed in the north-west part of England and in Scotland at the time when the makers of these early tools or weapons occupied the southern and eastern parts of this country, which, however, in those days was not an island but was still connected with the Continent.

The question now arises whether the assumed absence of palæolithic implements over this area may not be due to their not having as yet been found, and not to their non-existence.

It must be remembered:—

1st. That flint is extremely scarce over a great part of the area, and therefore that any implements would almost of necessity have to be formed from some other material, such as quartzite or one of the older rocks.

2nd. That in the case of implements made of such materials, the evidences of human workmanship are not so conspicuous or so easily recognized as on those formed of flint.

3rd. That owing to the nature of the rocks over which the ancient rivers flowed, the alluvial deposits within the area in question are of quite a different character from those formed in districts where flint abounds.

4th. That such alluvial deposits are not so constantly being excavated for economic purposes, and consequently not so open to examination as ordinary flint gravels, and that implements made from such materials as quartzite being probably more difficult to make, they would be fewer in number over a given area and also more highly treasured.

Even in the case of cave-deposits we have seen how, in those of