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Rh I now turn to the discoveries made in the valleys of the Avon and its affluents, which drain an area of about 670 square miles. The first of these took place in the River-drift beds, in the neighbourhood of Salisbury; beds which were pointed out by Sir Joseph Prestwich in 1859 as likely to contain implements of the same class as those from the valley of the Somme. This prognostication was made in ignorance of the fact that, already in 1846, a palæolithic implement had been found near Salisbury, and had come into the possession of the late Dr. S. P. Woodward, of the British Museum, who at that time put it aside, as having little reference to his own special studies.

Fig. 467.—The Foreland, Isle of Wight.

In 1863, however, Dr. Humphrey P. Blackmore, of Salisbury, discovered a flint implement in the gravel at Bemerton, near that town; and since that time numerous other discoveries have been made by him in the district, and also by the late Mr. E. T. Stevens, Mr. James Brown, and other explorers resident at Salisbury, the results of whose zealous researches may be seen in the admirable Blackmore Museum. These discoveries have been made in the valleys of the Avon and the Wiley, and also on the spur of land separating those streams, and on that between the Avon and the Bourne. In the valley of the Avon, implements have been found at Lake, about 6 miles above Salisbury; and also at Ashford, near Fordingbridge, about 12 miles below its junction with the Wiley and Nadder at that city. As Lake is the highest point in the Valley of the Avon proper at which, up to the present time, such discoveries have been made in the River-drift, it will be well to notice it first, though it must be mentioned that Mr. F. J. Bennett, of the Geological Survey, has found a good palæolithic implement farther north, near Pewsey Station.

Implements were found at this spot, in 1865, by Mr. Tiffin, jun., of