That instruments so rude should frequently have escaped observation cannot be a matter of surprise, especially when we consider that those educated persons who have been in the habit of examining drift deposits have been more on the alert for organic remains than for relics of human workmanship; while the workmen whose attention these implements may for the moment have attracted have probably thrown them away again as unworthy of further notice. I may mention as an instance of this, that in a pit near Peterborough, where Mr. Prestwich showed one of the Abbeville specimens to the workmen, they assured him that they had frequently found them there, and had regarded them as sling-stones; but none had been retained, nor on visiting the spot have I been able to find any traces of them.
As to the localities in England where mammaliferous drift, of a character likely to contain these worked flints, exists, it would occupy too much time and space to attempt any list of them. Along the banks of the Thames, the eastern coast of England, the coast of western Sussex, the valleys of the Avon, Severn and Ouse, and of many other rivers, in fact in nearly every part of England, have remains of the Elephas primigenius and its contemporaries been found. Almost every one must be acquainted with some such locality: there let him search also for flint implements such as these I have described, and assist in determining the important question of their date. A new field is opened for antiquarian research, and those who work in it will doubtless find their labours amply repaid.
JOHN EVANS.
Nash Mills,
Hemel Hempsted.
