Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/632

610 made by Mr. A. Montgomerie Bell. These, also, have been discussed by Sir Joseph Prestwich in his paper on the Drift-stages of the Darent valley, already mentioned; but for the following account of the locality I am in the main indebted to Mr. Bell. Palæolithic implements have been found by him and others in the parish of Limpsfield, Surrey, from the year 1883 up to the present time. They are of the usual forms, both pointed and oval, symmetrical and well made, though rarely exceeding 4 inches in length. Many of them have been found on the surface of the ground; but in a gravel-pit on the water-shed between the Darent and the Medway, at an elevation of 500 feet above the sea, Mr. Bell has succeeded in obtaining several implements out of the solid bed of gravel, at depths of from 3 to 7 feet from the surface. The gravel is about 8 feet in thickness and covers a considerable area. The late Mr. Topley has pointed out that it presents some features that are unusual in river gravels, and Mr. Bell is inclined to invoke some kind of ice-action in its formation. I content myself with recording these opinions.

Besides the gravel there is a second implementiferous deposit at Limpsfield, on the slope of the Lower Greensand escarpment. Here more than three hundred implements have been found, at elevations of from 450 to 570 feet above the sea, principally on the surface, but also in the brick-earth at a depth of from 3 to 5 feet. They have been most frequent on Ridland's Farm, and comprise all the forms that are usually obtained.

Eastward of Ightham, within the watershed of the Medway, implements from the gravels have been obtained at West Mailing.

Dr. C. Le Neve Foster, F.R.S., in 1865, picked up a broken ovate implement about a quarter of a mile S.W. of Marden Church, on the edge of the valley of the Teise, an affluent of the Medway. Though found on the surface, it is of an ochreous colour, and apparently has been derived from some bed of gravel. In the same year, in the valley of the Medway itself, at Sandling, he found a rude, almost circular, implement, which, though on the surface, was also ochreous.

The most important discoveries, however, have been made in the well-known pits near Aylesford, in which some very fine implements have been found. I have several, one of which, of pointed form, with a heavy butt, must originally have been 9 inches long.